01 The Grammar of
Making
Six shows on two blocks, five closing this week, and every one asks the same question: what does it mean to make something? Akomfrah makes meaning from found footage and layered sound — he doesn’t invent, he recontextualizes.
Six shows on two blocks, five closing this week, and every one asks the same question: what does it mean to make something? Akomfrah makes meaning from found footage and layered sound — he doesn’t invent, he recontextualizes. Close makes portraits from grids of abstract marks — the face only appears at distance. Mohamedi lays hands on canvas and waits for the painting to reveal itself. Lichtenstein paints a picture of a brushstroke and dares you to call it inauthentic. Paula Cooper’s artists made work that defined a generation, and the gallery itself became the grammar that gave their language a home. Walk these shows back to back and you’re walking through Wittgenstein’s central insight: meaning isn’t stored in the parts. It emerges in the use.
- 01John AkomfrahLisson Gallery · 508 West 24th StreetCloses Sat Apr 25
- 02Pace Gallery540 West 25th Street · 3 shows
- Chuck Close
- Maysha Mohamedi
- Emmet Gowin
- 03Roy LichtensteinGagosian · 541 West 24th StreetCloses Sun Apr 26
- 04The Paula Cooper EffectGemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl · 535 West 24th StreetCloses May 22
John Akomfrah
Chuck Close
The Paula Cooper Effect
Maysha Mohamedi
Roy Lichtenstein
Emmet Gowin