Nalini Malani’s In Search of Vanished Blood at Galerie Lelong, Chelsea

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InuSearch of Vanished Blood contains video and sound as well as a shadow play created by five suspended Mylar cylinders to tell an overlaid narrative of multiple parts, rather like a collage. Malani is a pioneering female Indian artist who showed this work at last summer’s dOCUMENTA in Kassel. There’s a lot going on, but this video clip gives you some sense of the effect and environment. Up through Saturday!

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Early #selfie: William Orpen

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This early self portrait by William Orpen dates from about 1910, and shows the young artist as the fashionable portrait painter in London that he was. Alternatively titled, “Leading the Life in the West,” a telltale camera in hand could bring this mirror shot of early self-fashioning into the present day.

Michael Raedecker’s stitched “tour” at Andrea Rosen Gallery, Chelsea

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These stitched canvas of chandeliers really drew me into the space at Andrea Rosen, where Michael Raedecker’s latest show tour is up through October 5. (Was up!–guess I just caught it). At first, I thought they were heavily painted, but then I realized the objects were embroidered into the picture before being painted over in monochrome silvers, deep blues, greys, and beiges.

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I saw silver chandeliers, and immediately thought ‘how neo-baroque,’ especially with thread bursting from the canvas. However, more of the canvases represent houses. In them, the rectilinear lines and depictions of facade parallel the flat geometry of the exposed areas of color around the stitched areas. The surface of these areas of color are variated and indistinct in a nice complement to the richly textured surface.

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