NYC Gallery Speedrun 10/25

I had a couple of hours layover in the city last week, and ran through some shows. Here is my slideshow report:

a detail of a gabriel orozco painting has a very loose grid, perhaps underlaid by the structure of a page of sheet music, with tiny compass-like circles and pies in red, blue and gold leaf. — Detail of Gabriel Orozco’s 30 de Octubre 2024, 16:40 hrs, Paris, 2025, 200 x 200 cm, at MGG [listen]

Gabriel Orozco, Partituras, at Marian Goodman: musical score-structured paintings, with corresponding improvised piano soundtracks linked in the checklist [pdf]. Hearne Pardee reviewed the show for The Brooklyn Rail.

a small sam mckinniss painting of a kid in a hoodie and mask doing a wheelie on a city street, alongside a burning white waymo car, which is belging black clouds up into the top of the painting. the open door and body work of the car have been spraypainted multiple times with fuck ice and other anti fascist slogans — Burning Waymos, 2025, Sam McKinniss painting of a painting on a Waymo at Law & Order at Deitch

Sam McKinniss’s show, Law & Order, at Deitch, is so good, and it’s been extended. There’s a little postcard-sized booklet with a text by Todd von Ammon, too. “The artist does not copy the image, but performs cosmetic surgery on it…” I am cursing the expiring qr code link to the checklist, which I thought I so craftily saved, so who knows what this perfect little painting is called? [update: hero Ian who screenshot the checklist knows. thank you]

sam mckinniss's small, ipad sized painting of marco rubio's high school yearbook photo shows a bright shiny twink with thick dark hair, carefully parted, his head tilted just so in that yearbook way, wearing a white shirt dark jacket and tie, looking like the mormon missionary he might have become if his family hadn't returned to the catholic church. rubio is tan, glowing, and smiling, eyes twinkling, tiny daubs of reflected light on his cheeks and forehead, the whole future ahead of him, and he decided to become a cruel fascist stooge can you even imagine? you don't have to, the painting prompts the viewer to complete the arc when they encounter it. — Marco Rubio, 2025, Sam McKinniss’s Law & Order at Deitch

The flash reflecting on high school Marco Rubio’s cheeks looked at first like it was daubed on with a fingertip. I thought of these lights again a few minutes later when I saw the spotlights on Celine Dion’s Eiffel Tower.

a detail of a monumental sam mckinniss painting of the tiny celine dion singing on the eiffel tower for the paris olympic opening ceremonies, here a brushy little figure in a white gown stands amid a field of almost entirely black paint, with two barely carved out white spotlight dots above her head, and a faint, intermittent, brushstroke of white under her feet, hinting at the tower's structure, or at least the stage's, as it was broadcast on tv — detail of the monumental painting, Celine Dion (Hymne à l’amour), 2025, at Sam McKinniss’s Law & Order at Deitch

Sam is talking about the show with Richard Beck tonight (10/15, 6:30).

Like a chump, I straightup forgot to go to the kurimanzutto show.

a 14 ft tall corten steel arc of a richard serra sculpture fills the right side of the photo, curving away to the left and back, at an angle that makes the other end imperceptible. two tiny figures on the other side of the gallery space give some scale. one of three such arcs in running arc (for john cage), but the other two are not perceivable from this photo — Richard Serra, Running Arcs (for John Cage), 1992, at Gagosian 21st St

The Richard Serras are Richard Serras. Very much so. John Cage, not so much.

a middle aged white blogger with a salt and pepper beard and glasses, and a bit of light reflecting off his forehead takes an unavoidable selfie in the reflective glazing of a black framed black photostat work by felix gonzalez torres that has two rows of white text at the bottom: diana zero princess north oliver patient/ helms disco waldheim bag pope poppers tut. the work is on a white gallery wall in a show curated by nayland blake — Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled, 1988 in Nayland Blake’s show: “Helms Disco” “Pope Poppers”, photostat, 10 1/2 x 11 3/4 in.

The Nayland Blake shows are wonderful. This ur-Felix, without dates, but with “Pope Poppers.” This haunting Betye Saar box.

an antique looking wooden box stands on its side with the lid open on a pedestal in the center of a white cube gallery. the interior of the box is dark blue, with an antique style picture of model or decopauge sailing ship, as if at sea. the inside of the lid, at left, is a pasted down, aged illustration of the interior of a slaver ship, where enslaved african people are packed into rows that fill the outline of the hull. final journey, 2024, is a work by betye saar, in a show by nayland blake, who made the tarp-covered fence gate in the gallery doorway in the background, with a raggedy sign reading IN Session — Betye Saar, Final Voyage, 2024, in Nayland Blake’s show at Matthew Marks, 9 x 12 x 7 in. not shown: the Cornell box facing it

That door that used to be the secret passage to a Laura Owens lair.

in the center of a white cube space, a black tattoo or massage style padded table stands on a black mat, with apparatuses and hanging elements on two corners. along two walls, a black chain or thick rope festoons rather tightly to the corner. each rope is hung with mostly evenly spaced objects of craft, beauty or fetish, including blown glass sex objects, harnesses, and such, like kink-celebrating charm bracelets. artworks by nayland blake — Nayland Blake, two Charms and 50 Minutes, all 2025, at Matthew Marks

Each wall is a Charm (2025), and shoutout to Blake and their glassblower both. I’d love to see an entire show of horizontal things with things hanging from them, invite Cady Noland and Arthur Jafa. Blake is talking with Lynne Tillman next week (10/20), for The Brooklyn Rail.

four old timey bottles of clear glass with cork stoppers sit on a small glass shelf attached to a gallery wall. each is filled to the same level with clear liquids, from left to right, colorless, pale yellow, colorless, and darker golden yellow. the 1987 nayland blake sculpture water/wine/vinegar/piss was remade in 2025 — Nayland Blake, Water/Wine/Vinegar/Piss, 1987/2025 at Matthew Marks

The split date on this beautiful sculpture made conservators sigh with relief. It made me think of Tony Feher, who I don’t think had such exciting things in his little jars, unless…?

a pair of white adidas pokes into the bottom edge of the top down photo of a painted steel plate sitting flat on a grey painted concrete floor. black and white printed images of geraldo rivera with a nose bandage and lee harvey oswald getting shot are affixed to magnet sheets and composed on the left side of the horizontally oriented panel. this turns out to be just one element of three in an untitled sculpture by cady noland. the overhead lights cast intersecting double shadows of the figure taking the picture — Installation view of Cady Noland at Gagosian of one part of Untitled, 2025, the UV printing on magnets and magnetic tape on painted steel. This work also has a black pallet with aluminum bar and some more printed magnets and plates, sorry I missed them here.

There was a lot of flatness in the Cady Noland show. Things flat on the floor, especially, that look like pictures, but take up space like sculptures. Also, everything that seems like source material or imagery, that creates the sense of a glimpse into Noland’s process, is, in fact, created, printed on magnets and arranged. The densely covered tables sculpture is the most:

four white steel rolling tables are pushed together and covered with an array of sheet magnets printed with work sketches, photocopies of news articles, faxes of diagrams and fabrication instructions, the kinds of documentation you might expect to find in cady noland's studio. there is also a steel milk crate on the corner of the closest table. several printed metal signlike objects lean against the back walls, and the corner of a printed sheet of something on the floor pokes into the right side of the photo. — Cady Noland, Untitled, 2025 (the one with four rolling tables), installation view

I ran a cinema in college, so I am pretty sure these 35mm film reel sculptures are quiet homages to me. They’re definitely the ones I’d make first. These and the minifridge.

two highly aesthetic pallets, one steel and one molded black plastic, have objects artfully arranged on them, including two steel 35mm film reels. in the middle ground of the photo is a white molded plastic traffic barrier, and behind that a red printed brick pattern on a metal sheet. all in a white gallery with light gray painted concrete floor. most but not all of these objects are part of a single cady noland installation work, but i can't remember offhand if there are other elements not depicted here too — I thought these were ghosts, not on the checklist, just like at Glenstone, but they’re parts of the larger barricade installation. that tiny little steel pallet with the bracket on it is part of another piece. They’re all Untitled 2025

a lush and slightly wobbly oil painting, unframed, of a british georgian country house of red brick, with a raised central portion, that sits among thick green grounds, hangs above a smaller gold framed painting of a stag reclining in a forest. the corner of a framed work on paper pokes into the left side of the photo. part of a group of works by karen kilimnik — Karen Kilimnik, The mirror King Bagpuzzle house, 2003, and The Malaysian deer in France, 2005,

On the way out of town I stopped at Karen Kilimnik’s wide-ranging show at Gladstone on 64th St. There are better images of this collection of works and many equally alluring paintings on the website. I realize I just take these pics for visul notes for myself? This far into my publishing practice, you might think I’d get more content-optimized.

a gold framed painting on paper of the words death to pigs, made in 1987, hangs on a white gallery wall on a staircase landing. between the end of a velvet rope blocking access to the upstairs on the left and the end of the brass handrail going down on the right, a work by karen kilimnik — Karen Kilimnik, Death to Pigs, 1987, installed at Barbara Gladstone 64th St

After the Nayland Blake piece, I did first read this as Death to Piss. Sounds like 1987 was quite a year for folks.