Work Hard | The New Yorker
Mar 27 2015
This quirky but substantial show, organized by a witty Swiss sculptor, brings together two dozen artists who favor uncertain imagery and unpolished style. The oldest works are magnificent drawings by Marguerite Burnat-Provins, a writer born in 1872, who endured hallucinations and sketched creepy portraits (an over-powdered hag, a downcast man encircled by swans). Among the contemporary artists, sculptures by Mai-Thu Perret and Latifa Echakhch are particularly fine, but the eeriest and most compelling piece is Denis Savary’s “Alma (after Kokoschka).” When Alma Mahler left him for Walter Gropius, Kokoschka ordered a life-size doll in her likeness; Savary’s gawky homage is a seated doll covered in fur, displacing desire from human to beast. Through May 24.
