Solo Shows

Solo Shows

Jane Swavely: Admiration for the jungle

Contributed by Mira Dayal / There is a sense of unease in the series of paintings that comprise of “Espial,” Jane Swavely’s latest show at A.I.R. Gallery. I enter the space — not of the gallery, but of the painting itself. Hovering just inches above the ground, the edges of the canvas become the frame of a doorway, beyond which thick brush conceals a dark forest. But the tall grass of Werner’s Painting (2015) is not entirely still; as Werner Herzog himself says of the jungle, in Burden of Dreams (1982), “There is no harmony in the universe. We have to get acquainted to this idea that there is no real harmony, as we have conceived it. But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle.”

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Solo Shows

Stern verve: Joseph Zito at Lennon, Weinberg

Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / The artist’s weight in ominous lead slabs, a combat helmet spilling with rose petals — in another artist’s hands these conceptual pieces would probably seem trite or overbearing. But Joseph Zito’s unerringly fine calibrations of irony combined with his formidable technical range and astutely Gober-esque deployment of different materials — all on full display in installations cagily concatenated for a thirty-year retrospective at Lennon Weinberg in Chelsea — enables him to steamroller cliche and proceed directly to cool-eyed poignancy.

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