New Solo Shows at Blum & Poe, Casey Kaplan & Cuban Group Show at David Zwirner
Art shows you can’t miss this week in New York. We pick only 3.
1. Zhu Jinshi @ Blum & Poe
January 7 — February 20
In his first solo show in New York City, Zhu Jinshi showcases both the “all-over paintings” and the “Liu Bai” paintings, which together comprise both halves of his rather binary artistic practice. The Beijing-based painter oscillates from creating works in which the canvas is utterly covered in pigment to fabricating pieces that explore a traditional Chinese principle of composition — “Liu Bai” (translated as “leaving blank”) — through minimal, monochrome application of paint. Thus his works are explorations of composition as much as they are meditations on Chinese artistic culture and heritage.
On view at East 66th Street, New York, NY.
2. “Concrete Cuba” @ David Zwirner
January 7 — February 20
This group show features the paintings and sculptures of Cuban collective “Los Diez Pintores Concretos” (Ten Concrete Painters). From 1959 until 1961 the twelve artist group developed a concrete, geometric abstraction, deeply embedded with both the political conflict and change that Cuba was experiencing as well as the influence of the international art scene, many players of which frequently traveled through Havana at that time. Thus the style contrasts trends in wider abstractionism with a distinctly Cuban identity.
On view at 537 West 20th Street, New York, NY.
3. Giorgio Griffa @ Casey Kaplan
January 7 — February 6
Through his work, Giorgio Griffa seeks to make paintings as much as he attempts to examine the medium of painting itself. He traces the genre back to its most minimal beginnings: a single, simple line. Working with lines, Griffa exemplifies how the minimalist approach can be imbued with rhythm, symbolism and significance. His new solo exhibition, The 1970s, traces his oeuvre’s trajectory back to the decade in which it began, “in which logic was first established and the formation of a line initiated a decades-long career.”
On view at West 27th Street, New York, NY.
This post was written with the help of Alice Mahoney, from www.artlist.co
