Nice to see Michael Vahrenwald’s still lifes of tiny weeds
heroically lit at night getting up on the wall in Chelsea. They’re simple, but
beautiful pictures of the little tufts of nature always make me sad for people
who live in Bushwick, where there is a real lack of real nature, even by New
York standards. What did Szarkowski say? “Like Job, we need to learn to love
our ash pit.” Well, if a 30x40in image of a swath of gray cement, with weeds
painted gray by a lax city employee, isn’t loving our ash pit, I don’t know
what is. The show also features some more rad Matthew Day Jackson work. After
getting shellacked off his show at Hauser & Wirth, it’s nice to see him
back with some humble little pieces. Where he selected Time Life covers that
and in collaboration with his mother, Karen Jackson, stitched little shapes into
the cover photograph. I also can’t help but like the inflated pink bags on the
ceiling by Maren Hassinger. Not sure what to make of Dawit L. Petros’s pictures
of a dude holding up a cardboard box in front of expansive landscapes. I think
the Times review mentioned it was a commentary on minimalism, but what that
commentary might be escapes me. The press release mentions African alphabets
and commerce, but that seems like a lot of content to hang on pretty thin images.
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