From Srijon Chowdhury’s spectacular debut at P·P·O·W, to a tightly edited show of Mark Armijo McKnight’s work at the Whitney Museum of American Art, here’s what not to miss in New York City.
‘Srijon Chowdhury: Tapestry’ | P·P·O·W | 6 September – 19 October
Srijon Chowdhury’s debut at P·P·O·W just might be the most spectacular show of paintings in a very crowded season. The exhibition assembles a nervy collection of oil-on-linen work which manages to synthesize pre-Raphaelite nature worship, Islamic and Buddhist architecture, the gothic shiver-thrills of Hieronymus Bosch and William Blake, and the last 400 years of innovation in oil-painting techniques. Chowdhury seems to be able to do almost anything, and here he does everything, from pointillist fields of flowers that shimmer with LSD intensity to long strokes that ripple like plumes of air. His painted bodies are astonishing, rendered with an adoration that honours our anatomy without syphoning off all the strangeness. This isn’t so much body horror as body wonder. A bravura five-panel piece, Mouth (Divine Dance) (2022), dominates the space, with lips (themselves formed from figures in previous work) parting like portals into a red, wet mouth of raving devil figures, their potential kitsch annihilated by the infectious joy of their dance. Seeing is believing.