September Gallery Guide: Part I
Fall is in the air, and New York’s art world is energized with a packed roster of fantastic September shows.
Here is the first installation of our September Gallery Guide with the gallery exhibitions you’ll want to see ASAP! Look out for Part II, with more must-see shows to come from ArtMuse NextGen.
Whitney Bedford at Miles McEnery
Whitney Bedford’s amazing new “Veduta” paintings take their starting point in “view paintings” from the eighteenth century wherein artists took a romantic interest in landscapes, vistas and the natural world. Bedford’s landscapes explore this practice through an art historical lens, citing Pierre Bonnard, Paul Gauguin, Milton Avery, Henri Matisse, Mark Rothko and others for a brilliant meeting of art history’s past with its future.
September 9-October 16
520 West 21st Street
Images: Veduta (Bonnard Summer), 2021 (above); Veduta (Friedrich Summer), 2021 (below) courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery
Philip Guston: 1969-1979 at Hauser & Wirth
In their Philip Guston exhibition, Hauser & Wirth is bringing together eighteen masterpieces—some of which have never before been exhibited! This exhibition explores Guston’s career from 1969 to 1979, ten years wherein the artist moved away from abstraction and into a more formal vocabulary that he is perhaps best known for.
September 9-October 30
542 West 22nd Street
Image: Back View II, 1978 courtesy © The Estate of Philip Guston & Hauser & Wirth
Alison Elizabeth Taylor: Future Promise at James Cohan
In Alison Elizabeth Taylor’s brilliant new paintings, the artist meditates upon how daily life has changed due to the pandemic. Some of Taylor’s scenes take place in homes, others take place in now-emptied places of work. Together, Taylor’s new body of work acts as an ode to the resilience of communities during these novel times.
The subject of Taylor’s work is touching, and its medium is striking: The works included in Future Promise are made with a medium the artist developed that she calls “marquetry hybrid,” in which she combines wood veneer marquetry with painted wood, photographic prints she shoots herself, and painted passages on panel. This totally unique way of working creates an intensely complex and dense environment that destabilizes viewers while drawing us closely in.
September 10-October 23
48 Walker Street
Pictured: Rockshop, 2020 courtesy of James Cohan
The Art of Resilience at Montague Contemporary
The Art of Resilience is a benefit exhibition in support of the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya. As Africa closed its borders due to Covid-19, the livelihood of its cultural heritage sites and parks—and that of the people who work there—were decimated, as those sites rely on tourism for income. Funds from this exhibition will go to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, a non-profit UNESCO World Heritage Site in Northern Kenya that invests in the livelihood of its neighbors.
The Art of Resilience presents the various stories and faces of individuals who live and work around the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. The exhibition also explores the changes that took (and are still taking) place in Kenyan communities and cities during Covid-19. Curated by Laura Day Webb, artists include Charlie V. Rose, Pie Herring, Migwa Nthiga, Anyango Mipinga, Elias Mung’ora, Dennis Muraguri, Paul Onditi, and Joel Kioko.
September 2-12
526 West 26th Street, 4th Floor
Images: Dennis Muraguri, Steel Pulse, ROG Sacco, 2019 courtesy of Montague Contemporary
Alice Neel: The Early Years at David Zwirner
Though the Met’s major retrospective on Alice Neel closed in August, Alice Neel mania continues in New York with an exhibition at David Zwirner! The exhibition at DZ presents paintings and works on paper made within the first decades of Neel’s career and includes interiors, memory paintings, NYC streetscapes, and portraits of family and friends Neel painted in the 1930s through 1950s.
September 9-October 16
537 West 20th Street
Image: Spanish Party, 1939 courtesy of David Zwirner
Michaela Yearwood-Dan: Be Gentle With Me at Marianne Boesky
Michaela Yearwood-Dan creates lush, harmonic abstract environments that often reflect upon and explore the artist’s own experience as a Black queer woman. Her newest body of work reflects upon the last two years and address the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, queer liberation and more.
September 9-October 23
509 West 24th Street
Image: Detail from Beyond the veil of the mythical super woman, 2021, courtesy of the artist, Tiwani Contemporary and Marianne Boesky
Nathaniel Mary Quinn: NOT FAR FROM HOME; STILL FAR AWAY at Gagosian
With the superstar artist’s first exhibition at Gagosian in New York, Nathaniel Mary Quinn presents a series of stunning new paintings and works on paper that continue the artist’s exploration into perception and memory as he expands upon the very definition of portraiture. Quinn is known for his brilliant composite portraits, made with charcoal, gouache, oil paint, oil stick and pastel, that bring together personal photographs, magazine images, comic books and more.
September 17–October 30
980 Madison Avenue
Image: Double-Barreled Shotgun, 2021 © Nathaniel Mary Quinn
John Currin: Memorial at Gagosian
Known for painting in the style of the Mannerists and Old Masters, John Currin paints incredibly skillful portraits that conflate and obscure high and low culture in delightfully humorously ways. Often depicting exaggerated female characters that recall pinup and even pornographic images, Currin is able to tuck away obscenity into his technically-masterful works to create paintings that recall both art history and girlie magazines.
With his new works, Currin paints “memorials” or statue-like figures painted in grisaille that meditate upon eroticism and death in a darkly humorous way.
September 14-October 30
541 West 22nd Street
Pictured: Memorial, 2020 courtesy of Gagosian
Tyler Mitchell at Jack Shainman
In both of the gallery’s locations, Jack Shainman presents two magnificent exhibitions by the wünderkind photographer Tyler Mitchell (whose career skyrocketed when he was just 23 and shot Beyoncé for the cover of Vogue). These two exhibitions mark Mitchell’s first exhibitions with the gallery and both present magnificent, rich scenes that explore themes of intimacy and home within Black communities.
September 9-October 30
Dreaming in Real Time – 513 West 20th Street
I Can Make You Feel Good – 524 West 24th Street
Images: Time for a New Sky, 2020 courtesy of Jack Shainman
Lisa Yuskavage at David Zwirner
Lisa Yuskavage is known for her monumental figurative paintings that push art history, often the use of the nude, to explore human sexuality and psychology. In the exhibition at David Zwirner, the artist presents four new large-scale masterpieces that reference both colorfield paintings and scenes of artist studios and ateliers.
September 9-October 23
533 West 19th Street
Image: Pink Studio (Rendezvous), 2021 courtesy of David Zwirner
Zanele Muholi: Awe Maaah! at Yancey Richardson
The South African artist and visual activist Zanele Muholi is acclaimed for her amazing photographic portraits of LGBT people in South Africa. This month, Yancey Richardson will present the first large-scale exhibition of paintings by Muholi, with seven lyrical painted self-portraits made with acrylic paint on canvas. Additionally, the exhibition will include new photographic self-portraits by the artist as part of her ongoing series Somnyama Ngonyama, ‘Hail the Dark Lioness’ (2012-present).
September 10-October 16
525 West 22nd Street
Image: Somile, 2021 courtesy of Yancey Richardson
Avery Singer: Reality Ender at Hauser & Wirth
With her much anticipated premiere exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, Avery Singer presents two new series of large-scale paintings. These new paintings, which the artist created by conflating traditional painting techniques with automated and computerized processes, teem with energy and expand upon the medium of painting altogether.
September 9-October 30
542 West 22nd Street
Image: China Chalet, 2021 courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth, and Kraupa, Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin © Avery Singer. Photo: Lance Brewer
Roaring Back curated by Space2Curate at CORE: Club
In the roaring twenties, a surging economy created an era of mass consumerism, as Jazz-Age flappers flouted Prohibition laws and the Harlem Renaissance redefined arts and culture. Curated by Space2Curate, a new venture by ArtMuse founder Natasha Schlesinger and Christine Mack, “Roaring Back” proposes to bring the same kind of energy and optimism felt through art works by a group of contemporary artists.
According to Space2Curate “This exhibition is about resilience, renewal, and revitalization now felt throughout New York City. We want to start again, shout from the roof tops and declare that we are back! With “Roaring Back”, we hope that such enthusiastic energy and optimism will resonate with viewers, inviting them to celebrate and enjoy along with the artists and curators of the show.”
Follow Space2Curate on Instagram to stay up to date on their latest pop-up exhibitions!
Viewings available by appointment and to CORE: Club members
September 8-November 1
66 East 55th Street
Image: Marilyn Minter’s Chewing Green, 2009
Newsletter written by Samantha Kohl, Editor.
Artmuse Selects was established by Natasha Schlesinger, founder of Artmuse Inc, an award winning art advisor and curator and Kwame Decuir, a technology specialist and entrepreneur in 2017. Originally conceived to help art lovers and collectors find art exhibits at galleries in NY, it has continued to adapt and shift focus as the art world evolves and the world changes. Based in New York, Artmuse Selects recently started to expand with an eye to curate artists, shows and galleries beyond New York city.
For more information, please visit www.artmuseselects.com, app.artmuseselects.com, or contact Natasha Schlesinger at ns@artmuseny.com.
If you have questions about our newsletter or would like to share events with us, please email samantharkohl@gmail.com.