New Showcases For Old Work
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

What jumps out from a spreadsheet of 650 shows opening in New York in the next three months? The show featuring the Swiss artist who chooses to call himself Not Vital, of course. Mr. Vital has a name-defyingly lively show of work in diverse mediums opening at Sperone Westwater September 15.
Eccentric names notwithstanding, a striking pattern on the shortlist of promising shows is the number that look at older work, either by familiar or neglected artist, current or past.
Top of the bill in this category is Caravaggio, star of a two-part show of old masters at Salander O’Reilly (October 17). The gallery is offering a version of “Apollo the Lute Player” that experts are now arguing is the original while the version in the Hermitage is a copy. It was thought to be the other way around for the 300 years it hung in a British stately home. For this first American viewing of the picture, Salander has reconstructed the studiolo of the cardinal who commissioned it, along with “Shepherd Corydon with a Ram” on loan from the Galleria Doria Pamphilj in Rome, and a photographic montage of the ceiling fresco, which is still in situ.
Reconsiderations of artists from a much more recent past include Mary Boone’s presentation of Barbara Kruger from 1978 (November 1); Alan Sarat, who withdrew from showing art some time ago, has a survey of works on paper since the 1960s at the Drawing Center (November 9); German Neo-Expressionist A.R. Penck has works from the 1960s at Michael Werner (September 20); and Stephen Pace’s Abstract Expressionist works of the 1950s will be at Katharina Rich Perlow from October 6.
Willem de Kooning is a frequent subject of shows in New York, but this season there is a cluster of three significant outings. Both Gagosian (September 18) and L & M Arts (until November 7) have his controversial late paintings, made when the artist was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. And Allan Stone presents a survey of the artist’s works on paper from the 1920s through the 1970s.
The last works of a gentler giant of abstraction, the veteran color field painter Jules Olitski, who passed away this summer, opens at Knoedler November 8. Early work by the late Neil Welliver, meanwhile, shows at Alexandre from October 4.
Several shows focus on artists who died before their time. Ronald Feldman is showing the last body of work by Hannah Wilke, who died of cancer in 1993. Her “IntraVenus Tapes” are videos whose title makes a pun of the metaphorical connectors between her art and her illness. And there is posthumous interest in the work of Steven Parrino, who was killed in a road accident in 2004, whose show opens at Gagosian September 25.
It is not just the venerable or the departed who are considered indepth this season. The young Pakistan-born Huma Bhabha is showing in four venues: atm (September 6); Salon 94 and Salon 94 Freemans (their new space in the Lower East Side, both September 12); and at Peter Blum in November.
The Lower East Side explosion of galleries partly anticipates the opening this Fall of the New Museum of Contemporary Art on the Bowery, and also reflects increasing rental costs in Chelsea, the principal art district. In addition to Salon 94 Freemans, galleries to watch in the neighborhood include Rivington Arms, Canada, Reena Spaulings, and 31 Grand. Lehmann Maupin, the Chelsea gallery, has also opened a second space in the area, on Chrystie Street. This month it is showing the artist Jun Nguyen-Hatshushiba at the Chelsea gallery.
There is also, as ever, new work from acknowledged modern masters, emerging talents, and the gamut of career positions in between. Anthony Caro’s new galvanized sculptures open at Mitchell-Innes & Nash October 18; James Rosenquist has recent works at Acquavella (October 30); and Georg Baselitz opens at Gagosian November 10.
Mr. Caro has a roster of fellow Britons to keep him company in New York galleries this fall. Hardedge optical abstractionist Bridget Riley will be at two of PaceWildenstein’s venues (57th Street and 25th Street) beginning November 9. The sculptor Antony Gormley is at Sean Kelly New York (October 26). And Chris Ofili, whose paintings of the Madonna that utilized elephant dung notoriously aroused Mayor Giuliani’s wrath back in the 1990s, has new work at David Zwirner (September 20).
There are many painting shows to look out for this season. Stylistically, these come in convenient pairs: If your preference is more for baroque idiosyncrasy, there is “Mark Greenwold: A Moment of True Feeling” at DC Moore (October 10) and “Julie Heffernan: Booty” at P.P.O.W. (September 20). And for wacky yet ethereal, meditative trance painting, look for “Ross Bleckner: Meditation Paintings” at Mary Boone (November 3) and Barbara Takenaga at McKenzie (November 15).