Nina Chanel Abney: "Lie Doggo"
Through October 25 at Jack Shainman Gallery at The SchoolA monumental exhibition of paintings, collages, site-specific murals, sculpture, as well as a digital installation await visitors to Nina Chanel Abney's "Lie Doggo" at The School in Kinderhook. Paying homage to the sophisticated color theories of Matisse, continuing the legacy of cubists, Picasso and Leger, and connecting with the sensibilities of figures from the Harlem Renaissance, Abney brings these historical movements into contemporary life through bold use of color and the symbols of everyday life. Abney's pieces challenge viewers to decode messages in spaces of commerce and confront their interpretations, fostering dialogue on societal structures and unspoken agreements. —BKM
"2024 Visual Arts Exhibition"
June 1-September 30 at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park
This year's annual summer exhibition at the Tivoli arts space is curated by Hilary Greene and features eight regional artists—Emil Alzamora, Sequoyah Aono, Arthur Gibbons, Kenichi Hiratsuka, Ashley Lyon, Ian McMahon, Mollie McKinley, and John Sanders—whose work will be displayed in the lobby of the Kaatsbaan Studio Complex and across the 150-acre campus. The show includes a couple of Chronogram favorites, sculptors Emil Alzamora and Ashley Lyon, who both work with the human body but create vastly different pieces, Alzamora's sensual and sleek, Lyon's a report from the realm of motherhood. One installation not to be missed is Arthur Gibbons's whimsical Kaatsbaalloon (pictured), a giant yellow inflatable wedged between three wooden pillars, seemingly by an oversized infant who didn't want to lose his favorite toy. —BKM
Arlene Shechet: "Girl Group"
Through November 10 at Storm King Art Center
The Kingston-based sculptor debuts six new large-scale commissions—spanning heights of 10 to 20 feet and lengths of up to 30 feet—along with complementary indoor works in wood, steel, and ceramic. "Girl Group" is colorful—Shechet brings an array of pinks, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and purples rarely seen at Storm King—and by far the largest the 75-year-old artist has ever worked. The outdoor pieces are also as coy and funny as they are bold and unafraid. The pieces both stick out and fit in with the minimalist pieces at Storm King by the likes of Mark Di Suvero and David Smith. —BKM
July 18-21 at Various Locations
Founded during the first summer of the pandemic by art world veteran Helen Toomer to bring exposure to Hudson Valley art and artists and escape to quarantine-fatigued city dwellers, the first year featured 23 arts venues. In 2021, the number of participating sites numbered over 60. This year's Upstate Art Weekend has 146 participants, from galleries and museums (Bill Arning Exhibitions, Catskill Art Space, Magazzino) to lesser-known art destinations (Weird Specialty Studio), and artists' open studios. Our must-see this year: "A Dyke Cabin of One's Own" at Mother-In-Law's in Germantown is Danielle Klebe's transformation of a country house into a queer "man cave" as immersive installation; in collaboration with the cool kids at Newburgh's Elijah Wheat Showroom. —BKM
Steve McQueen: "Bass"
Through April 2025 at Dia Beacon
For over 30 years, the artist, photographer, screenwriter, videographer, film director, and film producer Sir Steve Rodney McQueen (Steve McQueen) has created artworks that express the rawness of the human condition. Engaging with critical themes such as history, class, race, and repression through nonlinear filmic narratives that tend toward a destabilizing mood, McQueen is unapologetic in his presentation of painful biographies. In 2023, The Dia Art Foundation in collaboration with the Schaulager, Laurenz Foundation announced a major joint commission to be presented at Dia Beacon this year before travelling to Schaulager, Munchenstein in Switzerland next year. This special collaborative exhibition at Dia Beacon celebrates Dia's 50th anniversary with an immersive installation by the artist that explores the full spectrum of visible light accompanied by a sonic component, further galvanizing McQueen as a powerhouse of his generation. —TT
Daniel Giordano: "Crystal Blue Persuasion"
June 22-September 15 at The Hyde CollectionMy first encounter with Daniel Giordano's glittering-mayhem-art-as-material-theater at Ryan Turley Gallery in Hudson turned me into an immediate fangirl of this fiercely original artist. Born and raised in Newburgh, Giordano's commitment to his gritty post-industrial New York roots comes through by way of his dynamic art practice, which includes ceramics, woodworking, assemblage, found objects, and blown glass—all of which are radically incorporated into wildly muscular sculptures comprised of these and other atypical and often outrageous materials. Giordano's ability to morph miscellaneous paraphernalia into sculptural scenes reflects his unique creative wizardry. His solo exhibition Crystal Blue Persuasion at the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls will present a large-scale installation and a series of new sculptural typologies that extend the delightful nature of Giordano's radical aesthetic spirit, indeed, a visual extravaganza not to be missed. —TT
"Mis/Communication"
June 15-November 3 at Dorsky Museum at SUNY New PaltzCurated by Amy Kahng, "Mis/Communication" at the Dorsky Museum will feature work by 16 international artists who explore the power of language in a cultural context, including video, sculpture, drawing, and interactive media. Among the participating artists are Clarissa Tossin (whose recent collaborative, research-based practice investigates the climate crisis at the intersection of place, history, and aesthetics), Frederic Bruly Bouabre (who during his lifetime was committed to studying and memorializing his native Cote d'Ivoire's Bete community through drawings and handwritten manuscripts), and Dulce Soledad Ibarra (a multidisciplinary artist who considers generational guilt, identity, and displacement through a queer Xicanx perspective). —TT
Carrie Mae Weems: "Remember to Dream"
June 22-December 1 at CCS Bard Hessel Museum of ArtPioneering artist Carrie Mae Weems has been at the forefront of the conversation concerning art as political agency for over 30 years. Since meeting the Black Panthers in San Francisco in the 1960s to her involvement in the Black Lives Matter protests around the US, Weems continues to explore an intersection of ideas surrounding racism and sexism in the American social-political landscape through her photography, video, performance, and installations. In her own words, her politically engaged art practice "explodes the limits of tradition" through her ongoing effort "to find new models to live by." "Remember to Dream" at CCS Bard Hessel Museum presents a series of rarely exhibited and less-known works that reflect the evolution of Weems commitment to activism and her desire to highlight modes of oppression against people of color and women especially. —TT
Painting by Peter Halley / Sculpture by Steph Gonzalez-Turner
June 2-July 28 at 'T' Space Gallery
'T' Space in Rhinebeck remains committed to a cross-pollination of interdisciplinary thinking about art, education, and the preservation of our natural forested habitat through year-round offerings including their lecture series, residency program, and rotating exhibitions. Their upcoming summer show will feature a new wall painting installation by Peter Halley and sculptures by Steph Gonzalez-Turner. Since the 1980s, pioneering multimedia artist Halley has been working in a geometrical style using planes of painted color to express the physical and psychological aspects of urban spaces. In recent years, his site-specific installations have included wall-sized digital prints and other elements that embody a bold new abstraction for a contemporary era. Emerging sculptor Gonzalez-Turner's work focuses on architectural intervention and freestanding sculptures with an anthropomorphic edge. For this exhibition, Halley and Gonzalez-Turner are collaborating to create a dynamic dialogue between elements of painting, sculpture, and architecture. The show will be accompanied by a special publication and a gathering with the artists during Upstate Art Weekend (July 20-21). —TT
"Tall Shadows in Short Order"
Through September 14 at Wassiac Project
Wassaic Project's annual summer exhibition is always a large one—30 to 40 artists present their work in Maxon Mills, the organization's seven-story, 8,000-square-foot historic grain elevator. If the setting isn't enough to entice you to check out "Tall Shadows in Short Order," the work of these three participants may be. Argentinian artist Luciana Abait will be featuring a site-specific version of her installation The Maps that Failed Us, an imposing, geographically illogical, and impassable mountain range that alludes to arbitrary borders and displaced migrants. Katie Peck, a summer 2024 artist-in-residence, will be creating a nearly life-sized felt semi-truck driven by Midge Gertrout the Rainbow Trout, a character Peck created to bring awareness to "all creatures" and plant life's future living in an atmosphere quickly filling with carbon. And Robin Crookall's sophisticated black-and-white photographs are actually images of miniature models the artist constructed to challenge viewers' preexisting notions of reality, memory, and place. —JD
"Fragile Beauty: Treasures from the Corning Museum of Glass"
July 4-October 27 at The Clark Art Institute
Corning Incorporated, a renowned materials science company known for glass and ceramic innovations including Corelle tableware and Gorilla Glass, which is used in smartphones, established a museum in 1951 to preserve and feature glass objects from around the world. What a delight, then, to have the opportunity to see 28 pieces from the collection without making the four-hour drive to Corning, New York. Presented in the Clark's Michael Conforti Pavilion in Williamstown, Massachusetts, these objects draw upon plants, animals, and other aspects of nature for inspiration—and are some of the most exquisitely gorgeous things you will see this summer. —JD
