picks February 24, 2023

Damien Davis

At the entrance to Damien Davis’s exhibition “SEARCHING,” visitors are provided a flashlight and led into a darkened gallery. The windows and walls are blacked out, yet the room is illuminated by the soft glow of ultraviolet light. Beckoning to the viewer are thirteen neon-colored, wall-mounted sculptures, crafted from pieces of laser-cut acrylic, which allude to the complexities and anxieties—filtered through a generous dose of humor and beauty—of being Black and queer in America today.

On the Grind (all works 2023), features the profiles of two Black men. One of them, his body a stylized red

picks February 03, 2023

Anna Ortiz

According to legend, the capital of the Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlan—today known as Mexico City—was founded by the Mexica (the early Aztecs) when they left Aztlán, their former home, in search of a new one. To do this, they followed Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of sun, war, and conquest. The deity told his people that they should build their new kingdom upon a site with a particular sign: an eagle perched upon a cactus that is devouring a snake. Painter Anna Ortiz’s exhibition here, “Hacia Aztlán” (Toward Aztlán) is filled with reverence for the mysteries of the cosmos and a palpable longing

print November 2022

Monia Ben Hamouda and Michele Gabriele

“Remarkably Clear, Almost Invisible” is a lesson in the substance of language. Crafted by Monia Ben Hamouda and Michele Gabriele (both artists are based in Milan, though Ben Hamouda also lives and works in Al Qayrawān, Tunisia), the show presents a generous dialogue between two kindred spirits who nonetheless carve their own distinct paths. Since 2016, the artists have scoured the terrain that connects communication and silence, finding common ground in their use of fabricated objects to create tactile sculptures rich in both history and fantasy. The exhibition here, their first in the United

print May 2022

Emily Oliveira

How thin is the veil between our world and the next? Emily Oliveira’s exhibition “Red Velvet, Orange Crush” examined this numinous terrain for felicitous cracks, where a quick glance between astral planes can potentially offer up moments of satori. Oliveira positions herself between these realms as a kind of mystical gatekeeper, providing safe passage into unknown dimensions. A lustrous array of tapestries and sculptures were housed in this gallery turned devotional space, inviting us into the artist’s search for an existence free of earthly chaos and mortal inhibitions.

Oliveira draws inspiration

picks March 17, 2022

Mimi Park

In H. G. Wells’s 1896 science-fiction novel The Island of Doctor Moreau, a shipwrecked protagonist finds himself on the titular landmass, which is inhabited by the abominable creations of a mad scientist whose interspecies experiments are a haunting metaphor for man’s disregard and cruelty toward nature. South Korean artist Mimi Park’s exhibition here, “Dawning: dust, seeds, Coplees,” takes on this theme, offering the viewer an experience—simultaneously amusing, bewildering, and horrifying—one might have if one were ever stranded on the dark shores of Doctor Moreau’s laboratory.

Live seedlings

picks January 11, 2022

Jimmy Raskin

Jimmy Raskin is an aberrant poet who reveals himself on rare and vital occasions, like “a kind of ten-year cicada,” as critic John Reed once wrote. His work is often a whirlwind of chaotic, exciting, and sometimes incomprehensible musings on the nature of artistic creativity. Thankfully for us, Raskin has emerged from the soil once again with “Stations of the Last Eccentric,” a presentation that attempts to describe a metaphysical state in which an artist’s desire to create has evaporated into absolute fulfillment, an experience that, per Raskin, is “filled to the brim with inspiration, but no

print December 2021

Onyedika Chuke

“Won’t you join us in this great new national crusade?” Nancy Reagan’s cold, scripted words echoed across the gallery and between dozens of Quaker church pews that, for Onyedika Chuke’s exhibition here, had been arranged into an enormous maze titled The Forever Museum Archive/The Untitled/Labyrinth, 2020–21. The sound bite was cut from President Reagan’s 1986 national address on the perils of drug use among America’s youth. Ron and Nancy appealed to the public on live TV in the guise of two concerned grandparents, welcoming the country into the Oval Office for a fireside chat. Yet, as history

print Summer 2021

Ginny Casey

Painter Ginny Casey’s previous show at Half Gallery, in 2018, featured an assortment of household wares rendered in haunting shades of coral, cobalt, and marigold. These items—watering cans, shoes, kitchen chairs, and other things—have long been a part of the artist’s visual repertoire. While isolating during the pandemic, Casey burrowed deep into herself and into the vistas of her domestic environment, rendering the familiar wondrous, strange. The eleven oil-on-canvas works here explored the notion of “home” as a domain that is both safe and scary, a place in which life is not only lived but

picks February 11, 2019

Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw

Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw’s “an idea of god, or a toothbrush” offers a shaded view of the American dream: full of sugar, laced with poison, and topped with a cherry for your tasting pleasure. The art duo, lauded for their ostentatious performances and installations, have targeted the dark heart of the United States in eighteen mixed-media sculptures that feature, among other things, depictions of delectable cakes, gooey slices of pizza, and one enormous ice cream sundae.

This vision of America—the land of Pizzagate, The Jim Bakker Show, and WikiLeaks—is defined by unchecked paranoia, doomsday

picks July 19, 2018

Igor Hosnedl

Alex

Painter Igor Hosnedl’s “The Opening of the Wells” takes its name from a 1955 chamber cantata by the composer Bohuslav Martinů. The composition celebrates the magical flourishing of spring throughout the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands of Czechia. Here, the Czech-born Hosnedl also embraces the season’s sensuousness and grand, mystical dimensions.

In Emerald Twilight (all works 2018), one of five canvases on view, primavera has blossomed. A silhouette of a nude female figure reclines into a curtain of lush, leafy greenery. The scene is intoxicating—the picture’s rich absinthe hues seduce the psyche.

picks May 12, 2017

Adriana Ramić

A wall-to-wall landscape of fragrant herbs, green moss, and wildflowers fills the gallery with the sweet, aromatic perfume of a garden at morning. For her first solo exhibition, Adriana Ramić has built an ecosystem, titled Every time step that passes has a cost of one (all works 2017), specifically designed to entice ladybugs. In stark contrast to this natural scenery, hundreds of printed images—what the artist describes as flashcards—cascade down the gallery walls, depicting plants, mysterious diagrams, toxic-waste barrels, elephants, kitties, and balaclavas, among countless other things.

The

picks April 14, 2017

Erwin Wurm

Since the 1980s, Erwin Wurm’s “one-minute sculptures” have instigated artful absurdity within the gallery space by asking visitors to act out detailed, irrational tasks with a vast spectrum of common objects. In his latest exhibition, “Ethics demonstrated in geometrical order,” the artist employs midcentury modern furniture as elegant props for a new suite of sculptures that will make most modernist design aficionados squirm.

Deep Snow (all works 2016) invites you to step into two wobbly, oblong holes that have been cut into a pristine Baker Copenhagen bench. In the artist’s own handwriting

Gabriel H. Sanchez