Sheep before Condos: Lalanne Sheep Station in Chelsea

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Aside from the obviously pleasing incongruity of sheep in the middle of Manhattan, what’s going on here? These epoxy stone and bronze moutons are on one hand iconic sculptures by deceased French artist François-Xavier Lalanne. Sheep in Manhattan: charming and a bit surprising, even if they are cartoonish sheep elevated vis-a-vis art. Less surprising is that the Getty Filling station that used to mark this corner of Chelsea has been transformed — partially into a public art space– but more purposefully as the ground floor cornerstone to a “premier collection of luxury residences.” No doubt the art and the adjacent High Line will only add to the attractions of this future luxury development by Michael Shvo.

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Not that there is anything wrong with that. Art in New York (in the world but especially in New York) hardly exists in an art-for-art’s-sake vacuum. I hesitate to imply there should be guilt rather than the pure candor of the press release which spells out this relationship, linking commercialism and social status to art in ways that no doubt everyone is already more than aware of. But how does it make you feel about the sheep, hanging artificially onto a carefully-watered patch of grass in the midst of the vast metropolis?

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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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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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