Want to see new art in New York this weekend? Start in the East Village to see the exquisite work of the American Surrealist Hughie Lee-Smith at Karma. Then head to the Lower East Side to check out Emily Furr’s new paintings at Sargent’s Daughters. And don’t miss the group show “Black Atlantic” at Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Newly Reviewed
Summer hours vary at galleries. Visitors should check in advance.
CHELSEA
‘Eyes of the Skin’
Through Aug. 12. Lehmann Maupin Gallery, 501 West 24th Street, Manhattan; 212-255- 2923;
lehmannmaupin.com.
Teresita Fernández is known for installations that coax viewers into an awareness of their
bodies in space. Here she takes the role of curator, assembling nine artists who are also
interested in ways of perceiving that are not strictly visual — it’s work that is as much felt
as seen.
Adriana Corral transfers archival documents onto prepared gesso boards for her
“palimpsests,” layering the imprints so some parts remain legible while others
accumulate into impenetrable abstract veils. Occasionally, a word or image is
decipherable, offering horrifying evidence of how 20th-century Mexican immigrants were
subjected to toxic “disinfection” by U.S. authorities for fear they would spread disease.
Close by, Francheska Alcántara combines Hispano cuaba soap — ubiquitous in Caribbean
households, used for everything from washing clothes to healing wounds — with charred
wood to make “Tiger Jaw,” III and IV, both 2022, which hang on the wall like protective
amulets. “Star Spangled” (2019) by Esteban Ramón Pérez combines leather (remnants
from his father’s upholstery shop) and other scraps to cobble together a map of America
that looks like flayed white skin. The intricate thread-and-nail work in Glendalys Medina’s
Installation view of “Eyes of the Skin,” a group show curated by Teresita Fernández which
brings together work by nine artists who are interested in ways of perceiving that are not
strictly visual. via Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London
“The Owl (El Búho)” from 2020, inspired by Taino myth, or the weaving in Kira
Dominguez Hultgren’s “A Perpetual and Continuous Splitting” (2022), which draws on
multiple South and Central American traditions, make you acutely aware of the precise
bodily movements that must have gone into making them. Through a sensitivity to
material and process, these artists reveal histories often invisible to the eye.
