At Downtown galleries, debuts and returns
BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN | SAM SAMORE: “1973” and “LIBRARY OF APPEARANCES” The first solo presentation of Sam Samore by Team Gallery will consist of two separate exhibitions installed in the gallery’s two separate spaces. While Wooster Street will house “1973,” an exhibit of small-scale black and white photographs by the American artist, Grand Street will feature new large-scale color photographs and recent short films. Samore explores notions of privacy and myth in contemporary society, not shying away from employing photo-techniques that are favored by private detectives. While containing fetishistic qualities and at times evoking film noir, his work also remains illusive and open to interpretation. “The Murdered Brother,” one of the series to be displayed, portrays a partially inflated rubber glove in positions that are suggestive of a crime scene in a conventional suburban household.
Sept. 12-Oct. 27. At Team Gallery (83 Grand St. and 47 Wooster St., btw. Grand & Broome Sts.). Call 212-279-9219 or visit teamgal.com. Hours: At 83 Grand, Tues.-Sat., 10-am-6pm & Sun., 12pm-6pm. At Wooster, Wed.-Sat., 10am-6pm & Sun. 12pm-6pm).
QUERELLE — PHOTOGRAPHED BY ROBERT FRITZ This will be the first New York exhibition of Fritz’s production photographs taken on the set of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s classic and final film, “Querelle” (1982.) One hundred and nineteen color images by Fritz — a photographer, producer and performer — will be on display. In the case of “Querelle,” he worked daily on Fassbinder’s set as both an actor and production documentarian. Originally shot as color transparencies, these images were previously known to exist only as “Querelle — The Film Book” (Schrimer/Mosel-Grove, 1982). Unlike film stills, which are sourced directly from filmed footage, these photographs capture re-enactments. Here, the action was re-staged for the still camera.
Sept. 7-Oct. 14. At White Columns (320 W. 13th St., enter on Horatio, btw. Hudson & 8th Ave.). Hours: Tues.-Sat., 12-6pm. Call 212 924 4212 or visit whitecolumns.org.
ANDREW GBUR The painter’s solo gallery debut will include two bodies of work spanning the gallery’s two LES locations. Concerned with painting’s reliability as a mode of communication, Gbur favors a highly graphic, formal and material visual vocabulary that reveals characteristics of post-war painting. Influenced by the works of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, Gbur’s technique involves collage, silkscreen, gouache, inks and acrylic — and allows for handmade irregularity. Autobiographical and iconic imagery, ranging from self-portraits to signs and symbols, add to a dense webs made of personal code. Overall, Gbur’s work reads as a complex synthesis of the demands and stresses of contemporary life. This quality crescendos in the artist’s so-called “face paintings,” in which an abbreviated language of color, material and shape depict the mere remnants of the human visage.
Through Sept. 30. Reception: Sept. 9, 6-8pm. At Eleven Rivington (195 Chrystie St. and 11 Rivington St., btw. Bowery & Chrystie). For fall gallery hours and more info, call 212-982-1930 or visit elevenrivington.com.
GINA MAGID Born in New York City in 1969, Magid received her MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. While the subject matter of her paintings and works on paper is usually derived from popular culture, her use of form springs from her interest in the abstract layering of imagery. Striving for a feeling of transcendent beauty and mystery, Magid creates works that provide a sense of underlying psychological complexities and the connections between all things, the negative ones as well as the positive.
Sep. 5-Oct. 7. At Feature Inc. (131 Allen St., btw. Rivington & Sts.). Hours: Wed.-Sun., 12-6pm. Call 212-675-7772 or visit featureinc.com.
ALEX OLSON: PALMIST AND EDITOR This will be Olson’s second exhibition with Lisa Cooley and the first in her new space (the former popular music venue Tonic). Olson’s paintings focus on surface appearance and treatment. She scratches, scrapes, and scars her composition, pushes her materials and applies multiple layers to establish heavy impastoe. This technique provides the viewer with a sense of time and of the aging of the work itself — which adds an organic, almost humane quality to an otherwise abstract vocabulary.
Sept. 9-Oct. 14. At Lisa Cooley (107 Norfolk St., btw. Rivington & Delancey Sts.). Hours: 10am-6pm,Wed.-Sun. Call 212-680-0564 or visit lisa-cooley.com.
