Top Art Exhibits Coming to NYC Galleries in November

Anish Kapoor - Chelsea

In 2016, British artist Anish Kapoor secured exclusive rights from Surrey NanoSystems to use Vantablack, the blackest synthetic material ever created. Vantablack is made of closely packed carbon nanotubes that absorb nearly all light, causing anything coated with it to appear as a flawless matte black void regardless of its shape or size. This opens up limitless artistic possibilities. Kapoor's first concept was to coat the face of an expensive luxury watch with Vantablack.

However, he has also made some artworks with Vantablack which are debuting at Lisson Gallery in New York. Among some larger overdone paintings and assorted black objects made of materials like resin, canvas, and fiberglass are new "Non-Object Black" pieces utilizing Vantablack. These include a pillar over a foot tall, a panel with two hemispheres, another panel with a hat-like projection, and a diamond shape - all sealed in the glass boxes they were delivered in to preserve the material's perfection. Even a speck of dust could ruin the effect of these dense, black surfaces that resemble outer space.

While the pieces are simple beyond the material, Vantablack is unlike anything seen before. The reviewer struggled to find adequate descriptions, such as shadows on the moon made solid, a digital glitch, or rips in reality's fabric.

Nancy Holt - Financial District

One of Nancy Holt's most famous works is "Sun Tunnels," four large concrete pipes arranged according to solar cycles and engraved with star patterns, located in the Utah desert. Another well-known piece may be "East Coast/West Coast," a 1969 video in which Holt and her husband Robert Smithson satirize 1960s art, with him portraying the freewheeling West Coast perspective and her representing a rigorous Eastern viewpoint.

These works are featured alongside others in the exhibition "Perspectives" at Dunkunsthalle, an artist-run space in a former doughnut shop. In it, Holt and critic Frederick Ted Castle discuss images of a cityscape viewed through round holes in a black card, avoiding simplistic conclusions as they work to re-see familiar elements like cars and buildings. Like the astronomically aligned openings of "Sun Tunnels," the holes in the card serve as tools for shifting one's viewpoint - reinforcing the exhibition's goal of presenting alternative perspectives.

Ser Serpas - Chinatown

Ser Serpas avoids boredom through an immersive installation instead of a standard painting exhibition. The works hover between abstraction and figuration with earth tones and red dominating on flat, primitive surfaces evoking ancient cave paintings of seated female nudes.

She has positioned 16 of the 17 untitled 2023 paintings within and on a large white cube resting on sawhorses and stools at the back of the gallery. Missing sections of the top and back reveal the structure's interior from different angles.

Views of the large pictures on the exterior are only possible up close while passing through the narrow space between a cube and the wall. Looking inside from behind, one sees a simulated artist's studio. Careful observation reveals connections between figures - one appears imprinted onto another's canvas from a wooden panel, and a painting rendered through lace creates mirrored surfaces.

This casually ingenious spatial arrangement suggests a metaphorical exchange between bodies, portraying the creative process on display within Serpas's configuration that engages the mind as much as the eyes.