Now that things are starting to reopen, that means one thing: art galleries and museums are back! Take in a little culture at some of the hottest art exhibits of the summer.
The Best French Art Exhibits in NYC:
- Cézanne Drawing
- Tehachapi
- Wild Rosebuds
- Alix Le Méléder: Works 1997–1999
- Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life
1. Cézanne Drawing
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Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) may be best known for his oil paintings, like “The Large Bathers” and “The Basket of Apples,” but his drawings are no less memorable. The Museum of Modern Art has put together the exhibition Cézanne Drawing to showcase more than 250 rarely shown works in pencil and kaleidoscopic watercolor from across Cézanne’s career. Domestic subjects like family and household objects contrast with mountains and forests to create a dynamic portrait of this well-known artist’s evolving style.
MoMA, 11 West 53 Street
Through September 25
2. Tehachapi
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Known for his distinctive large-scale portraits and mixed media projects, French photographer JR is back in New York with a new exhibition at the Pace Gallery. Tehachapi “explores the interplay of reality and illusion, expansion and confinement” surrounding a series of visits JR made to a maximum-security prison in Tehachapi, California. The artist interacted with inmates to record their stories and photograph them, pasting their images on the prison yard walls, and later covering the walls with an optical-illusion image of the bottom half of the surrounding mountains that lined up with the real ones just outside.
Pace Gallery, 540 West 25th Street
Through August 21
3. Wild Rosebuds
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French sculptor Jean-Michel Othoniel’s decades-long fascination with flowers (he once stated in a 2015 interview that “Flowers are our primary images”) has culminated in a new exhibit at Perrotin in New York called Wild Rosebuds. “In Wild Rosebuds, the artist continues his exploration of nature through a contemplative and minimal approach, showcasing his romantic vision of the world where simple pleasures, such as flowers, are full of hidden meaning,” reads Perrotin’s website. Strings of mirrored beads formed into rosebud-like shapes will be on display, along with abstract paintings of roses, similar to ones that entered the Louvre’s permanent collection last year.
Perrotin, 130 Orchard Street
Through August 13
4. Alix Le Méléder: Works 1997–1999
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Alix Le Méléder stopped painting in 2011. But a collection of her Works 1997-1999 will be on display at the Zürcher Gallery through July 21. Her oil paintings are known for an entrancing, methodic, Rorschach-like pattern of different colors painted in thick, revolving brushstrokes. “In a final burst of energy in 2011, she produced about 100 paintings. Convinced that she had achieved everything she had set out to do, she decided to stop painting,” explains the exhibition review in Hyperallergic. This retrospective will be the largest collection of her work in New York so far.
Zürcher Gallery, 33 Bleecker Street
Through July 21
5. Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life
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At first glance, the artworks of Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) look like something out of a whimsical childrens’ park. But look for just a moment longer and you’ll be struck by the powerful feminist messaging inherent in these large-scale, primary-color sculptures and drawings. One of her most shocking is Hon (1966), an 82-foot-long colorful striped set of splayed legs beneath a pregnant belly, with an entrance between the legs that creates the impression that visitors are being birthed from the sculpture. This, along with many others of varying shapes and sizes, will be on display at MoMA PS1 in the exhibit Structures for Life.
MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Avenue
Through September 6
