December Gallery Guide: Part II

Happy Artful Holidays from our Artmuse family to yours!

End the year with ART:

Artmuse Selects’ final gallery guide of 2020 is here!

Close the books on 2020 with a few great gallery shows. Read below Artmuse Selects’ final gallery recommendations for 2020, and get ready for a great new year in art!

Need a last-minute gift for the holidays? Artmuse is here to help! We are pleased to offer a new season of Virtual Art Tours for Winter/Spring 2021. Sign up for yourself or as a holiday gift for a loved one for a fun, memorable, engaging and unique present that lasts months! Give the gift of art or learn more here.

1. Sarah Anne Johnson: Woodland at Yossi Milo Gallery

With her magnificent show at Yossi Milo, Sarah Anne Johnson creates stunning landscape images of a shimmering forest that display the artist’s familiarity and intimacy with these outdoor spaces. Johnson works by taking photographs in the forests of Manitoba, Canada, where Johnson is from. The artist then transforms these familiar scenes into other-worldy landscapes by applying gold and brass leaf, holographic stickers, ink, and oil paints to her large-scale photographs. The exhibition also features a few of Johnson’s earlier sunsets, created with this same, beautiful process.

Through January 9, by appointment

245 10th Avenue

Pictured: WWSOSR, 2020 | courtesy of Yossi Milo Gallery

2. Hélio Oiticica at Lisson Gallery

You might remember walking through Helio Oiticia’s immersive, historic exhibition at the Whitney a couple of years ago. A titan of the Brazilian avant-garde, Hélio Oiticia presents new works that expand our notion of visual art to include experimental theater, music, literature, and more. Come to the exhibition at Lisson Gallery and enter a new world filled with beauty, wonder, and delight.

Through January 23

504 & 508 West 24th Street, by appointment

Pictured: installation views|courtesy of Lisson

3. Benny Andrews: Portraits, A Real Person Before The Eyes at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery

Benny Andrews (American, 1930–2006) created incredibly heartfelt portraits that seem to reveal something about the soul of both the artist and subject. The exhibition at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery traces Andrews’ dedication to portraiture and features 35 collages and paintings that were completed between 1957 and 1998. Some of Andrews’ portraits feature anonymous subjects, like his seminal collage painting Janitors at Rest (1957). Other portraits are of his friends and counterparts: the show includes portraits of the artists Marcel Duchamp, Ludvik Durchanek, Norman Lewis, Ray Johnson, Alice Neel, and Howardena Pindell, and also of his father George C. Andrews, and wife, Nene Humphrey.

Through January 9, by appointment

100 Eleventh Avenue (at 19th Street)

Pictured: For Colored Girls, 1977 | Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery

4. Brassaï at Marlborough

Travel back in time to 1930s Paris through the lens of Brassaï! This must-see exhibition of photographs act as a time-capsule to Parisian nightlife from between the Wars period, filled with romance, mischief, and joie de vivre. Capturing moments in time from Paris’ famed Montparnasse, Brassï’s photographs are considered by art historians to capture the essence of the city in both his depictions of high society and the underground. Spend a midnight in Paris (with a few of the artist’s famous friends, including Dalí, Matisse, Braque, and Picasso) through Brassaï at Marlborough.

Through February 27

545 West 25th Street

Pictured: Braque au poêle, Derrière, Le Billard, rue de Douanier (Braque by his stove, his painting Le Billard behind, Rue de Douanier), 1946  | courtesy of Marlborough

5. Yinka Shonibare CBE: Earth Kids at James Cohan Gallery

With Earth Kids, Yinka Shonibare CBE connects the history of colonization with the future of Earth’s natural resources. Child-size sculptures clothed in beautiful African batik textiles, Shonibare’s imaginative and inspired new works champion the incredible generation of young people that are currently leading the way for racial and environmental justice (think Greta Thunberg!) while calling attention to the history of colonization. These incredible sculptures fuse the past and present as a call to protect the incredible generation of young people today.

Through January 23

291 Grand Street

Pictured: Fire Kid Girl, 2020 | courtesy of James Cohan gallery

6. 12 Artists at Harper’s Books

12 Artists brings together the work of both established and emerging artists from four continents, presenting visitors with a wonderful introduction to new artists from across the world! This fantastic group show features the work of Tyler Ballon, Tizta Berhanu, Anthony Coleman, Diane Dal-Pra, Al Freeman, Eliot Greenwald, Alexander Guy, Stacy Leigh, Tahnee Lonsdale, Charles Ly, Lily Wong and Cai Zebin.

Through January 9

51 East 74th Street (buzz twice)

Pictured: Eliot Greenwald, Night Car (lake), 2020 | courtesy of Harper’s Books

7. Anastasia Samoylova: Landscape Sublime at Laurence Miller Gallery

Moscow-born, Miami-based artist Anastasia Samoylova creates re-constructed landscapes that create a beautiful, transcendent new reality. Samoyloa’s process is fascinating: the artist scours the internet for stock photos of landscapes, which reflects the American consumerist habit of endlessly scrolling online. Samoylova then prints out the stock photos she collects and then cuts up and re-assembles these images into three-dimensions. The artist then re-photographs these three-dimensional collages, flattening space once again. The resulting works are wondrous, beautiful, and geniusly rendered!

Through December 31

Presented Online

Pictured: Rainbows, 2014 | courtesy of Laurence Miller Gallery

8. Ed Ruscha: Paintings at Gagosian

One of the greatest American artists of our time has an exhibition of new paintings at Gagosian! These works continue Ruscha’s foray into examining Americana and development of a distinctly American lexicon, but show a departure in his process as they are bereft of exclamatory words and phrases. In these new works, Ruscha uses the American flag, the tire, and mountains as a language to masterfully depict a distinctly American sense of positivity and hope. 

Through January 23, by appointment

541 West 24th Street

Pictured: Mountains, 2020 | courtesy of Gagosian

9. This Sacred Vessel at Arsenal Contemporary

This Sacred Vessel is a wonderful online group presentation that re-imagines the possibilities for landscape, portraiture, and still-life painting traditions. This exhibition offers remarkably unique works by artist who each feature their own, distinctive voice.

Artists include: Shelley Adler, Michael Assiff, Melanie Authier, Stephanie Temma Hier, Alex Kwartler, Rick Leong, Walter Scott, Brittney Leeanne Williams, Janet Werner, Samantha Rosenwald, Amanda Boulos, Kim Dorland, Peter Dreher, Greg Ito, François Lacasse, Sarah Letovsky, Walter Robinson, Nadia Waheed, Molly A Greene, Bambou Gili, Eliz Griffiths, Wanda Koop, Vincent Larouche, Sojourner Truth Parsons, and Marion Wagschal.

Through January 30

Online Here

Pictured: Sojourner Truth Parsons, Tower Moment, 2020 | courtesy of Arsenal Contemporary

10. Teresita Fernández: Maelstorm at Lehmann Maupin

Teresita Fernández’s powerful show at Lehmann Maupin uses the language of devastating weather as a metaphor for the enduring effects of colonization. Fernández’s new works examine the Carribean archipelago—”patient zero” for colonization in America—as a starting point for the artist’s exploration of the effects of climate change as a metaphor for displacement and violence. Fernandáz’s works are poetic and evocative as they invite you to think about the region, and the long term effects of both climate change and colonialism.

Through January 23, appointments encouraged

501 West 24th Street

Pictured: Rising (Lynched Land), 2020 | courtesy of Lehmann Maupin

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Marc Dennis

Marc Dennis is an American artist known for his hyper-realistic paintings that celebrate the subversive potential of beauty and explore the charged subjects of identity, pleasure and power. Interested in transformative possibilities Dennis merges various movements throughout the western art historical canon with modern tropes in order to create clever, provocative and fresh paintings rich with hype, narrative and humor where art, history, nature, politics and pop culture intersect.

Born in Danvers, Massachusetts in 1971, Dennis was one of five sons and grew up in and around Boston, Puerto Rico and New Jersey. His father was born and raised in Havana, Cuba; and his mother was born and raised in Roxbury, MA. Marc received his B.F.A. from Tyler School of Art of Temple University in Philadelphia, PA and his M.F.A. from The University of Texas at Austin. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Pictured: He Loves me, He Loves Me Not (The Transfiguration of Snow White, 2019; Rock Star, 2015

Discover contemporary artists through the Artmuse Selects app!

Newsletter written by Samantha Kohl, Editor.