Art
Traces Everywhere | Through Sat., Feb. 26
Opening the door to the garden entrance of Tracy Williams's West Village townhouse feels a lot like breaking and entering. Not that I know what that feels like. The closest I've ever come to robbing someone was back in tenth grade, when some friends and I tried to steal one of those portable basketball hoops from a neighbor's driveway. But that excitement, that anxiety, that dread that any minute the cops are gonna show up-which they did-that's the sort of exhilaration I get walking through Williams' homely gallery.
It's not just the exposed brick walls or the upstairs fireplace or the deck with its garden view. Nor is it the proprietor herself working away at her desk-unassuming, attractive, smartly dressed. Nor is it the absence of prices and even names alongside the expertly hung work, as if the furniture was to arrive any day now. More than anything, it's the work itself that generates that particular thrill of partaking in something illegal.
Take the current show, Traces Everywhere, featuring works on paper by a dozen artists as diverse in style as experience and background. Veteran Matt Mullican's stick figure series shares wall space with rising star Daniel Hesidence's bizarre but beautiful abstractions, while Zipora Fried's 30-foot graphite runner is nicely juxtaposed with Judy Ledgerwood's delicate, silver-on-vellum rivulets. With passages including, "The guy falls on his knees fucking the girl's arse, his erection disappearing between her buttocks, then coming out shining with pussy juice, or piss or whatever," Fiona Banner's novella-length texts are captivating and profound, yet no more so than Anne-Marie Schneider's innocent rabbit sketches.
The one thing this work shares is sincerity. It's not art about art or politics or gender or religion or race-even the pair of uncharacteristically playful watercolors by Ouattara Watts. It's art-plain and not so simple. Foreign as that concept seems, it explains why walking through Williams' gallery feels so thrillingly dangerous.
Tracy Williams Ltd., 313 W. 4th St. (betw. Bank & W. 12th Sts.); 212-229-2757; Tues.-Sat., 11-6; free.
-Sean Manning
JOHN LURIE | Through Sat., Feb. 26
Inside all of us, there is a wolf and a bald gay man. At least in the vision of John Lurie, the Lounge Lizard and Jarmusch collaborator who's reinventing himself with a new exhibition of drawings and paintings at Roebling Hall's Chelsea branch. It's his second New York show in a year, and if his debut at Anton Kern Gallery was any indication, his latest ballpoint stick figures and pastels are going to move fast.
With titles like "Bird Mistakes Erection for Worm," the 46 works in the show, all done last year, are primitive, perverse and often hilarious. They're not much out of character, though, for a man whose tv series, "Fishing with John," had an episode about hunting giant squid in Thailand with Dennis Hopper. Lurie's art is an apocalyptic world populated by priapic cats and smiling Hitlers. A bear sneaks up on a couple having sex in the woods and shouts "Surprise!" while in another watercolor, three fluffy bunnies strike a deal with a damsel in distress: "First you blow us and then we'll let you go."
There's a darker undertone to some of the works, namely "Ghosts Were Making Richard Speck Ill," in which an Albanian nun and a Haitian voodoo priest attend to a bedridden figure. Lurie, 52, has spent the past few years struggling with Lyme disease misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis, and in some of his drawings he seems to wreak revenge against his doctors. But most of the time, Lurie's just getting his kicks. As he explained, "I like to draw and paint. It is a river to me. I am not an Indian."
Roebling Hall, 606 W. 26th St. (11th Ave.); 212-929-8180; Tues.-Sat., 10-6; free.
-Anna-Kaisa Walker
Christian Marclay
Through Mon., Feb. 7
Stand in the ring of video monitors to watch Christian Marclay's gloved hands "Shake Rattle and Roll" the Walker Art Center's trove of Fluxus objects by Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, George Maciunas, with some Joseph Beuys stuff tossed in for good measure. Or just close your eyes and listen...
Paula Cooper Gallery, 534 W. 21st St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.); 212-255-1105; 10-6; free.
-Alan Lockwood
Laylah Ali
Through Sat., Feb. 19
Featuring cartoon figures with stick limbs, round heads and colorful costumes, Laylah Ali's small, gouache paintings address a wide range of subjects, from mass inhumanity to personal vanity. Thanks to Ali's sly sense of humor, these prickly themes are easier to handle. A departure from her earlier series that featured scenes involving couples or small groups, this show presents portraits complete with passionate expressions, facial scars, and elaborate headdresses. Conceptually accessible, and visually playful, Ali's creatures, seen up-close, provoke awareness of the simple, individual behaviors that drive larger, complex issues.
303 Gallery, 525 W. 22nd St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.); 212-255-1121; Tues.-Sat., 10-6; free.
-Julia Morton