Rounding up the best gallery exhibitions across the United States each month, Galerie traveled from New York to Miami and Los Angeles to discover the top solo shows for May. From Japanese-American painter Takako Yamaguchi’s hybrid canvases that skillfully combine transnational artistic traditions at Ortuzar in New York to Katherine Bernhardt’s vibrant paintings layering pop culture figures, food, and consumer goods at David Zwirner in Los Angeles, these are the not-to-be-missed shows this month.
Kang Seung Lee at Alexander Gray Associates | New York
A multidisciplinary Korean artist exploring transnational queer histories through his interrelated drawing, embroidery, assemblage, photography, and video works, Kang Seung Lee honors the contributions of LGBTQIA+ individuals while highlighting frequently ignored counter-narratives. A master of traditional Korean art materials and contemporary Western art processes, the Los Angeles-based artist, who received his MFA from Cal Arts in 2015, analyzes and reinterprets images, texts, artifacts, and objects sourced from public and private archives, art collections, and libraries to produce his transformative artworks. Collaged assemblages of imagery and objects presented on skin-like veneers reference cruising-for-sex parks in Seoul and Los Angeles, while drawings based on photographs allude to artists who died of AIDS-related illnesses, such as Darrell Ellis, and AIDS activists like Laura Aguilar. And not to be missed is the video Skin in the backroom, which transforms Meg Harper’s 80-year-old dancer body into a vessel connecting the lives of other LGBTQIA+ individuals.
On view through May 31
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