A SLATE OF EXHIBITIONS in New York explore a range of mediums, including painting, photography, and sound installation. Among the shows are a thoughtful conversation between the works of Glenn Ligon and late composer Julius Eastman; surveys of new works by Lina Iris Viktor and Todd Gray; and presentations by Tyler Mitchell and Saya Woolfolk in advance of their participation in major museum exhibitions in New York:
Installation view of Julius Eastman & Glenn Ligon: Evil Nigger. | Courtesy 52 Walker
Julius Eastman & Glenn Ligon: Evil Nigger @ 52 Walker Gallery, 52 Walker Street (Tribeca), New York, N.Y. | Jan. 24-March 22, 2025
A conversation across disciplines and generations, this exhibition features works by composer and musician Julius Eastman (1940–1990) and New York artist Glenn Ligon (b. 1960), showcasing “their shared ability to derive meaning from strategies of repetition, erasure, improvisation, and translation.” The show’s title is derived from a 1979 composition by Eastman. Paintings, neon works, and an Eastman-inspired sound installation by Ligon are on view with four pianos at the center of the gallery. Three of the instruments, Yamaha player pianos, perform “Evil Nigger” every hour. While the fourth—an antique Weber piano representing the same brand Eastman used as a child and throughout his career—remains silent.
“The reason I use that particular word is because for me it has what I call a basic-ness about it. That is to say, I feel that, in any case, the first niggers were of course field niggers. Upon that is really the basis of what I call the American economic system. … What I mean by niggers is that thing which is fundamental … and eschews that thing which is superficial.”
— Julius Eastman (Spoken introduction to Northwestern University Concert, Jan. 16, 1980)
From left, LINA IRIS VIKTOR, “Bouré,” 2024 (24-carat gold, acrylic, gesso, linen, silk cocoons, banana silk, raffia on wood panel, 49 1/5 x 24 x 2 1/2 inches / 125 x 61 x 6.5 cm). | © Lina Iris Viktor; LINA IRIS VIKTOR, “Shonan,” 2024 (24-carat gold, acrylic, silk, jute, gilded and painted bronze beads on paper, Framed: 53 1/4 x 45 3/8 x 2 inches / 135.3 x 115.3 x 5.1 cm, Artwork: 29 7/8 x 22 inches / 76 x 56 cm). | © Lina Iris Viktor
Lina Iris Viktor: Red Season @ Salon 94, 3 East 89th Street (Upper East Side), New York, N.Y. | Feb. 19-March 29, 2025
“Red Season” presents eight paintings and mixed-media works on paper by Liberian-British artist Lina Iris Viktor. Featuring figurative, landscape, and architectural elements, the works are produced in a limited-palette of 24 carat gold and rich crimson red. Viktor’s “use of red taps into its archetypal significance, drawing inspiration from the Dogon people of Mali, where red is associated with femininity, transformation, and spirituality, thus connecting her work to broader African traditions and cosmologies.”
TODD GRAY, “Blues Ship (makes me wanna holla),” 2024 (three pigment ink prints on Dibond in artist’s frames, 41 x 61 1/8 x 2 3/4 inches / 104.1 x 155.3 x 7 cm). | © Todd Gray, Courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery
Todd Gray: White Angels Gaze @ Lehmann Maupin Gallery @ 501 West 24th Street (Chelsea), New York, N.Y. | Jan. 23-March 29, 2025
Photo-based artist Todd Gray joined Lehmann Maupin in 2023 and this is his first solo exhibition with the gallery in New York. Gray’s compositional works bring together seemingly disparate images. The works are designed “to destabilize assumptions about the veracity of photography and provoke reconsiderations of long-accepted norms and beliefs surrounding the medium, including the role of the viewer in constructing meaning.” The artist’s latest body of work draws on photographs made during his 2023 fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, Italy, and selections from his archive of early 2000s music photography. Gray divides his time between Los Angeles, Calif., and Akwidaa, Ghana.
TYLER MITCHELL, “Ghost Images, 2024 (archival pigment print, 63 x 77 3/8 inches / 160 x 196.4 cm), edition of 3 + 2 AP). | © Tyler Mitchell, Courtesy Gagosian
Tyler Mitchell: Ghost Images @ Gagosian Gallery, 541 West 24th Street (Chelsea), New York, N.Y. | Feb. 27–April 5, 2025
For his first solo exhibition with Gagosian since joining the gallery last year, New York photographer Tyler Mitchell engaged Southern gothic themes. Mitchell returned to his home state, where the images were photographed off the coast of Georgia on Jekyll and Cumberland Islands. Captured in 2024, the striking works explore seaside leisure and the psychological influences of history, memory, and the unseen. Forthcoming, Mitchell photographed “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” the catalog documenting the Costume Institute’s spring 2025 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
From left, SAYA WOOLFOLK, “Birthing a New Sky: Starship Moon Cycle, 2022 (mixed media collage on paper, Sheet: 46 x 35 inches, Framed: 47 1/4 x 36 inches). | © Saya Woolfalk; SAYA WOOLFALK, “Untitled (4),” 2024 (ceramic head, glass neck, 20 3/4 x 10 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches). | © Saya Woolfalk, Photos: Adam Reich, Courtesy Susan Inglett Gallery
Saya Woolfalk: The Woods Woman Method @ Susan Inglett Gallery, 522 West 24th Street (Chelsea), New York, N.Y. | Jan. 31-March 15, 2025
Saya Woolfalk makes works based on an imagined, hybrid species (Empathics) inspired by her own multicultural background (African American, Japanese, and European) and elements of science fiction, feminist theory, anthropology, and Eastern religion, as well as fashion. Empathics are “botanic humanoid beings” with a high capacity for empathy. In 2021, “Woods Women,” a secret society of forest dwellers, grew out of this invented world and are the subject this show. Closing today, the presentation features more than 30 works spanning drawings, prints, mixed-media collages, sculpture, and video, produced between 2016 and 2024. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects. In April, “Saya Woolfalk: Empathic Universe,” the artist’s first major museum exhibition in New York, opens at The Museum of Arts & Design. CT
