GALLERY I OCTOBER 9, 2020 I PAUL LASTER

5 Must-See New York Shows by Women Artists

COURTESY SHIN GALLERY, NEW YORK InstallationInstallation viewview ofof GailGail Goldsmith:Goldsmith: PiecesPieces fromfrom LifetimeLifetime atat ShinShin Gallery.Gallery.

From the art neighborhoods of the Lower East Side to Chelsea, women artists have kicked off New York’s fall cultural season with some of the best exhibitions in the city. Ranging from Gail Goldsmith’s surreal ceramics at Shin Gallery and Cindy Sherman’s photographs of androgynous characters at Metro Pictures to GaHee Park’s voyeuristic views of relationships at Perrotin, we’ve rounded up "ve must-see solo shows by artists who should be on every art lovers’ list.

THE SKELETONS IN FRANCIS THE LIFE AND HORTICULTURAL ART THE MAGICAL PAINTINGS OF RENÉ ALUMNI EXPLORE BACON’S STUDIO OF RACHEL “BUNNY” MELLON MAGRITTE OF THE BLACK AT PHOTO LONDON

COURTESY SHIN GALLERY, NEW YORK 1 2 3 4 5 GailGail Goldsmith,Goldsmith, CreoleCreole, 1992., 1992.

GailGail Goldsmith:Goldsmith: PiecesPieces fromfrom LifetimeLifetime Shin Gallery September 10 – October 18, 2020

Inspired by people, animals, and children’s toys, 86- year-old Gail Goldsmith has been creating fantastic "gurative and abstract sculptures from unglazed clay for decades, yet she has remained under the greater art world’s radar for most of that time. Many of her supporters thought that the Goldsmith’s 2011 retrospective at the New York Studio School would "nally bring her the attention that she deserved, but it didn’t. Now, however, might be a better time, as the revisionist moment for seasoned women artists is ripe.

Rediscovered by gallerist Hong Gyu Shin when he saw some eye-catching sculptures in the window of her Chinatown studio while passing by it last year, the artist’s current solo show recreates the raw, poetic sensibility that the dealer found when he "rst entered her domain. Featuring artwork that dates back some "fty years, the exhibition displays Goldsmith’s inventive use of stoneware clay and assemblage for creating fascinating, psychological pieces. Placing human heads cast in clay atop the slab-constructed bodies of beasts and pressing the patterns of fabrics and found objects into clay- fashioned aprons and armor, Goldsmith visualizes a world that has its origin in the depths of her memory and imagination.

COURTESY SHIN GALLERY, NEW YORK InstallationInstallation viewview ofof GailGail Goldsmith:Goldsmith: PiecesPieces fromfrom LifetimeLifetime atat ShinShin Gallery.Gallery.

“It’s the clay itself that suggests the forms,” she said in a 2011 interview with the Block Island Times. “It becomes a dialogue between me and the clay.” And that dialogue is evident in two pieces titled Creole— one that depicts a duck with a bow around its neck and the other with an identical body that surreally possesses the head of an aged man—and in the untitled clay composite of a woman’s head on the body of a dog. Some of the quirkier assemblages in the show include Grandmother, which has the clay head of a woman on a doll’s body in a toy baby stroller; a doll’s head and torso attached to the lower half of a child’s body formed from clay; and a pair of clay boots with bicycle handlebars stuck in them and a dismembered clay head of a man strangely squeezed between the bars—pieces that let you know you’re not in Kansas anymore.

COURTESY THE ARTIST AND METRO PICTURES, NEW YORK CindyCindy Sherman,Sherman, UntitledUntitled, 2019., 2019.

CindyCindy ShermanSherman Metro Pictures September 26 – October 31, 2020

Exhibiting compelling work since the outset of her artistic career, Cindy Sherman returns to Metro Pictures for her nineteenth solo show at the esteemed gallery with a colorful new body of work that has the art and fashion worlds abuzz. Presenting ten large color photographs of androgynous male characters stylishly staged in digitally manipulated, atmospheric settings, Sherman takes viewers on a virtual tour with her gender-bending subjects through the English countryside, the forests of Bavaria, and the streets and neighboring areas of Shanghai.

“Whenever I’ve consciously tried to do men, I felt like it was hard to look ambiguous as a man,” Sherman told Vanity Fair in a recent discussion about the series. “One of the issues keeping me from doing it was having decent and convincing wigs, and the other was clothing.” Although we’re not sure where she found the incredibly convincing wigs, we do know that Stella McCartney, who said in the same Vanity Fair article that she was “a massive—to say the least, huge—fan” of the artist, provided the fashions. Primarily dressed in clothing by the designer, who gave the artist complete access to her archive without any business purpose, the photos beguilingly blur the line between art, acting, and social commentary.

COURTESY THE ARTIST AND METRO PICTURES, NEW YORK InstallationInstallation viewview ofof CindyCindy ShermanSherman at at CourtesyCourtesy MetroMetro Pictures,Pictures, 2020.2020.

In the painting-size picture Untitled #602, Sherman assumes the role of a preppy, scholarly chap wearing an overcoat, pants, and T-shirt with a Cindy Sherman photo printed on it as he pensively stands at the fork of a garden path. In another image, Untitled #615, she sits on a stool dressed like a soldier in a khaki shirt and cowboy patterned out"t while her bodily image digitally reverberates in front of an equally surreal, mountainous scene. And in Untitled #618, Sherman plays a nerdy androgynous couple who suspiciously confront the camera in a lakeside setting that looks like it’s straight out of a Hitchcock "lm—causing one to re#ect on the spectacular, cinematic mood of all of the artist’s work.

COURTESY THE ARTIST AND LEHMANN MAUPIN, NEW YORK, HONG KONG, SEOUL, AND LONDON BillieBillie Zangewa,Zangewa, EverydayEveryday MiracleMiracle, 2020., 2020.

BillieBillie Zangewa:Zangewa: WingsWings ofof ChangeChange Lehmann Maupin October 1 – November 7, 2020

A rising star in the European art scene, even though she’s actually been showing her work on the African continent for some twenty-"ve years, Billie Zangewa makes her American solo show debut with a succinct selection of intimate fabric collages, which are stitched together from fragments of raw silk. Best known for her "gurative works depicting domestic scenes, the Malawi-born, South Africa- based artist presents seven new works that capture life in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Based on her own photographs, Heart of the Home portrays the artist homeschooling her son at the kitchen table through intricately collaged details; An Angel at My Bedside shows the artist at sleep while spirits are presumably watching over and keeping her safe, and Fresh Start "nds her in the shower, where’s she getting ready for a new day with a new lease on life.

PHOTO: ELISABETH BERNSTEIN. COURTESY LEHMANN MAUPIN, NEW YORK, HONG KONG, SEOUL, AND LONDON InstallationInstallation viewview BillieBillie Zangewa:Zangewa: WingsWings ofof ChangeChange atat LehmannLehmann Maupin.Maupin.

“I’m addressing different aspects of the isolation experience through the lens of the daily obligations that I’ve had to take on and adapt to, like homeschooling and cleaning the house,” Zangewa stated in an Artnet News interview referencing the show. “During lockdown, the usual mundane tasks did feel somehow strange, the threat of an invisible enemy ever-present. There are themes of newfound appreciation, joy, and loss.”

The loss that she references was the death of a dear friend, who is remembered in the piece Free Spirit, which shows him joyfully dancing in the clouds. Unable to attend his funeral because of the lockdown, the artist found a meaningful way to commemorate his essence in art.

PHOTO: GUILLAUME ZICCARELLI. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND PERROTIN GaHeeGaHee Park,Park, VoyeurVoyeur, 2020., 2020.

GaHeeGaHee Park:Park: BetrayalBetrayal (Sweet(Sweet Blood)Blood) Perrotin September 12 – October 17, 2020

An emerging artist who makes fascinating, erotic paintings in a #at, naïve art style, GaHee Park was born in Korea, where she grew up in a conservative religious home. Interested in art but seeing little opportunity to have an artistic career as a woman artist in her homeland, she moved to Philadelphia to study at Tyler School of Art, where she got her BFA and found the freedom to express her formerly suppressed self.

“I had no choices growing up,” Park shared in a recent Ocula Magazine interview. “I had to go to church every Sunday, I played the organ at 6 am every day, and attended bible readings frequently. But at the same time, in my textbook and notes, I was drawing some sexual images, what one would deem as forbidden stuff. It was a way of rebelling and asserting myself, I guess.”

PHOTO: GUILLAUME ZICCARELLI. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND PERROTIN InstallationInstallation viewview ofof GaHeeGaHee Park:Park: BetrayalBetrayal (Sweet(Sweet Blood)Blood) atat PerrotinPerrotin NewNew York,York, 2020.2020.

Living and working in Brooklyn since earning her MFA from Hunter College in 2015, Park has continued to perfect her voyeuristic, intimate paintings in one-person and group exhibitions in New York—hitting her mark of making more complex compositions in a 2018 solo show at Taymour Grahne in London. Initially exhibiting with Perrotin’s outpost in Seoul in 2019, she makes an impressive New York debut with the gallery by showing new paintings on the "rst #oor and drawings, which give insight into her evolving creative process, on the #oor above.

The painting Shadow Kiss captures nude lovers embracing on a bed with metaphoric symbols, such as a phallic-shaped anthurium #ower, a pierced cherry, and a pillow patterned with kisses, adding to the playfulness of the scene. Likewise, Invitation suggestively shows a dark-haired, nude damsel pulling back a curtain and the tight abs of a waiting man re#ected in a nearby mirror. And Voyeur depicts a "nger with a red nail penetrating a hole in a wall and an eye peering through from behind at a sensuous still life with a snail and a conch embracing on a leaf, while drawings related to the painting show variations on the same theme, which exposes a mind that’s as active as the pencil and the brush.

PHOTO: THOMAS BARRATT © LUCHITA HURTADO. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND HAUSER & WIRTH LuchitaLuchita Hurtado,Hurtado, UntitledUntitled,, c.c. 1990s.1990s.

LuchitaLuchita Hurtado:Hurtado: TogetherTogether ForeverForever Hauser & Wirth September 10 – October 31, 2020

A remarkable artist who had an eighty-year career prior to her passing in August of this year, Luchita Hurtado was known for her bold paintings and drawings, which embraced both "gurative art and abstraction, but recognition for her work came late in life. Emigrating to New York from Venezuela when she was eight years old, she studied art as a young adult and became part of a group of international artists, including Isamu Noguchi, who were active in the city during WWII. Making art in the creative shadows of her second and third husbands, the artists Wolfgang Paalen and Lee Mullican, Hurtado lived and worked in lively artistic circles—from Mexico to California to Europe and then back to California—as she continually made work, but rarely had it shown.

Rediscovered by chance, when archivists were reviewing Mullican’s #at "les years after his death, Hurtado became an overnight success with a show of her early works in Los Angeles in 2016. Three years later, she was being celebrated on the world stage, with a retrospective in London and a spot on Time magazine’s list of the 100 Most In#uential People of 2019. “I married Lee Mullican and had two boys, John and Matt,” Hurtado stated in a video for PBS’ Art21. “It takes a great deal of energy having the life of a parent and having the life of an artist— working and trying to make ends meet. My real painting, I had to do at night.”

PHOTO: THOMAS BARRATT © LUCHITA HURTADO. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND HAUSER & WIRTH InstallationInstallation viewview ofof LuchitaLuchita Hurtado:Hurtado: TogetherTogether ForeverForever atat HauserHauser && WirthWirth NewNew York,York, 22nd22nd Street.Street.

Works in the show re#ect on being a mother, with several recent paintings and drawings portraying the artist giving birth in both nature and abstract realms, while drawings from the 1970s and 1990s depict more traditional studies of the artist as mirrored likenesses and shadow "gures. The painting Untitled (Birthing) presents a reclining nude "gure in rippling water with a baby’s head appearing from between her legs and Two Limbs illustrates a similar scenario in a green "eld with a tree standing tall in the distance.

The untitled self-portraits from the ‘70s and ‘90s are rendered in ink, charcoal, and paint on paper. Forceful yet sublime, they convey a woman in motion—coming and going, playing many roles— but one who’s always seeing herself and the world around her through inspired eyes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Read more stories from Paul Laster

Paul Laster is an artist, critic, curator, editor, and lecturer. He is a contributing editor at ArtAsiaPaci"c and Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art and writer for Time Out New York, Galerie Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Architectural Digest, Cultured, Garage Magazine, Ocula, ArtPulse, Observer, Conceptual Fine Arts and Glasstire. He was Artkrush’s founding editor, started The Daily Beast's art section and was art editor of Russell Simmons’ Oneworld Magazine, as well as an Adjunct Curator of Photography at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, now MoMA PS1.