This week in Newly Reviewed, Will Heinrich covers Zoe Leonard’s armor, explosive paintings from Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Max Schumann’s paper bag art and Ed Bereal’s skeletal demon.
Chinatown
Zoe Leonard
Through Oct. 25. Maxwell Graham, 55 Hester Street. 917-675-6681; maxwellgraham.biz.
Zoe Leonard began taking photographs as a teenager in the late 1970s, and she leans heavily on the beauty of the gelatin silver print. A large part of what makes her photos so appealing is the sheer sensual depth of their blacks and grays, their velvety texture and sensitivity to light.
But she makes that beauty do other work, too. In “Display,” an austere installation of six large photographs of armor newly printed from negatives shot in the early 1990s, it stands for the glittering allure of death, which seduces us with beautiful weaponry and leads us to murder and war.
Shot as part of Leonard’s larger study of museum objects, the photos show several full suits of armor suitable for jousting in their vitrines at the Musée de l’Armée in Paris, complete with intersecting edges and reflecting glass. (There’s also an ancient breastplate from the defunct Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, Mass.)
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The post What to See in Galleries in October appeared first on New York Times.
