10 Shows to See in Upstate New York, November 2024

ORT Project | Dark Lux

J. Gernon Framing & Fine Art, 182 River Street, Troy, New York
Through November 23

Autumn is always a poignant reminder of eternal change, where decomposition thrives in abundance and the sheer loveliness of falling leaves is an ecstatic vision of impermanence. Enter ORT Project, an artist duo comprised of Oona Nelson and Anna Noelle Rockwell that indulges the gorgeousness of decay with a touch of sophisticated gothic charm. Dark Lux at J. Gernon Framing & Fine Art in Troy features a series of photographs, smaller sculptures, and hanging chandeliers (think: Edgar Allan Poe). Inspired by 17th-century Vanitas paintings from the Netherlands in particular, ORT Project creates sculptural tableaux vivants. Photos such as “Anthropocene Epoch; The Fall” (2020) and “Our Sins” (2018) disclose the process of set construction involved in realizing these works, and the images overflow with macabre oddities including ripe fruits, grisly skulls, and burned books. “ORTXXON” (2021), for instance, is an arresting vision of an agitated alligator floating solo in an oil spill, surrounded by diamond-covered lobsters and crabs — a vision of exquisite decadence and luxurious wreckage.

Willard Boepple, Margaret Saliske, Don Voisine: Two’d and Three’d

Pamela Salisbury Gallery, 362 ½ Warren Street, Hudson, NY
Through November 23

Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras promoted theories of a harmonized universe ruled by the structures of math, and the works of Willard Boepple, Margaret Saliske, and Don Voisine come together in a colorful and polished vision of their rationale. At Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson, Boepple and Saliske present a series of sculptures, while Voisine shows oil and acrylic paintings. A leading sculptor of his generation, Boepple’s distinguished, smaller-sized free-standing sculptures made of sintered nylon are geometric and elegant, and works such as “Tuxedo 3D” (2017) and “Bed 3D” (2016) are wonderfully upbeat. A series of wall sculptures by Saliske feel like isolated pieces from a multicolored machine — while “Wheel” (2024) and “2 Rounds” (2023) appear on the verge of shifting from one mechanical position to another, “Helmet” (2024) stands perfectly still. Eleven wood panel paintings by Voisine exploring the precision of geometric shapes seem both mid-century modern and contemporary, and act as an impeccable backdrop for the other two’s sculptures.

The Doll Show

Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, 34 Tinker Street, Woodstock, New York
Through November 24

Dolls have a sentimental (and strange) place in modern and contemporary art, with artists from Hans Bellmer to Cindy Sherman toying with them in their work. Curated by Eva Melas, Portia Munson, and Carri Skoczek, The Doll Show at Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild is an all-out celebration of dolls, from whimsical and stylish to quirky and questionable. Featuring artworks by 44 artists working in a wide range of media, from papier mâché and cardboard to painting and photography, the exhibition is both endearing and eerie. The happier of these works include Lia Zulalian-Moynihan’s ceramic “The Bride” (2002–22), who stands confidently upright with a compassionate vision of Jesus on the front of her flowered corset, and Kathy Ruttenberg’s ceramic “Intuition” (2005), who smiles sweetly in a blue dress and boots while carrying a mouse in a cage atop a fallen branch.

Other visions are less candied in appearance, such as Emily Blair Quinn’s oil-on-canvas “Biting Back” (2022), which features a melting doll head, and Corinne Botz’s photograph “Dark Bathroom” (2004), which features a clothed doll thrown carelessly into a sink while water pours into her face. “The Dollhouse, Alabama” (1972) by Ellenora Cage, in which two older gals dressed in blue and pink nightgowns smoke cigarettes in a country-style cabin laden with dolls, is a slightly depressing yet captivating vision of how the toy endures as personal playthings, no matter our age. The Doll Show also includes a dedicated wall of hundreds of dolls from the curators’ private collections — a vision of fetish meets fun.

Sascha Mallon: Flight Lessons

Front Room Gallery, 205 Warren Street, Hudson, New York
Through November 24

Walking into Sascha Mallon’s creative sphere is an otherworldly experience, where recurring themes such as blazing fires, rowdy ravens, howling wolves, and magical birds interact and exchange secrets in a timeless, mythological land. Flight Lessons at Front Room Gallery in Hudson features Mallon’s latest ceramic and installation works, which are held together with crochet, tatting, and bobbin lace. The exhibition consists of small vignettes that narrate the tale of a wolf who desires to fly and birds that aspire to match his strength, resulting in a multidimensional storyline that can be read in nonlinear fashion. The figurine “Button Wolf – Guarding the Flame” (all works 2024) depicts a seated anthropomorphic wolf covered in uniform buttons and holding a round bowl with a manageable wildfire in their lap. The stoic wolf shows up again and again in works such as “Shadow Wings,” in which they are flanked on four sides by trees above, a black crocheted bird to the left, a porcelain bird with a woman in its belly to the right, and a bonfire below; and “Wolfpack,” which includes eight wolves in various poses suspended in a mobile. While a few of the pieces hanging on the wall have delicate scenes painted around them (Mallon worked for several days on these site-specific works), other three-dimensional pieces, such as “Windborn,” appear to tell their own stories — here, a ball of birds flock together in a harmonious yet raucous scene. 

Lightforms Art Center, 743 Columbia Street, Hudson, New York
November 8–30

As World War I waned in 1918, the Austrian social reformer, architect, and esotericist Rudolf Steiner tasked musician and artist Jan Stuten with creating an original art form based on the confluence of sound, light, and color. The result was the series Metamorphosis of Fear (1919). An eponymous group exhibition at Lightforms Art Center in Hudson revisits this concept with a series of collaborative artworks by Stuten and other contemporary artists, including 15 minimalist sketches produced by the former intended as storyboards for an avant-garde light-play (an unfinished project). Among the metaphysically charged works in this show is Laura Summer’s “Metamorphosis of Fear 10” (2023), a vision of black figures falling downward and white figures reaching upward while being engulfed in an enormous cloud of yellow and red fire. The show also features abstract paintings by Katja Wishart, an abstract experimental film by Sampsa Pirtola, a personal narrative animation by Loki Anthony and Nathanaël Blachere, and an immersive multimedia performance by Zoï Doehrer, among other live musical performances by local artists aimed to enhance the immersive experience of this show. 

Matthew Lusk: Encyclopedia of Light (Today in Two Parts)

Elijah Wheat Showroom, 195 Front Street, Newburgh, New York
Through December 1

The immersive installation Matthew Lusk: Encyclopedia of Light (Today in Two Parts) at Elijah Wheat Showroom in Newburgh is an uncanny feat of engineering that encompasses their entire riverfront space. Begun in 2016, the eight pieces that comprise Encyclopedia of Light are installed on the main floor and are meant to represent hardware store lighting displays. They consist of square wood panels suspended from the ceiling with lamps and electrical fixtures on the bottom of the panel. The two scenes that anchor this series, “Encyclopedia of Light #14” (c. 2020) and “Encyclopedia of Light #27” (c. 2018) feature ghostly scarecrow-like figures (stand-ins for the artist himself), and miscellaneous ready-made assemblages on the top of a panel, including a car tire, a rake filled with hotdogs, plastic bins brimming with lightbulbs, and other unidentifiable oddities. The installation expands into another room, where other aspects of Lusk’s atypical creative environment pique our curiosity, including “Do Not Resuscitate” (2016–24), featuring a perforated and stamped lead sheet, and “Phantom Limb (black, white, green, red)” (2024), consisting of a scattered pile of bricks (some painted red, green, and black) salvaged from the Hudson River. 

When the Spirit Moves You

Geary, 34 Main Street, Millerton, New York
Through December 15

Curated by Elijah Wheat Showroom in Newburgh for Geary’s newly opened upstairs gallery in Millerton, When the Spirit Moves You is a group exhibition of 17 artists featuring a range of eclectic mixed-media artworks that embody the open-ended title. The press release indicates that the exhibition “is meant to serve as a deconstructed altar” that inspires “one to action from embedded unknown forces.” Aligning with the slightly obscure nature of these ideas, the diverse artworks included in this show indeed double as artistic relics that reflect unseen energies. Adrienne Elise Tarver’s video installation titled “Manifest” (2023), for instance, features a pair of hands seen from above as they conduct a Tarot-style reading against a black backdrop. Two sultry works by Aliza Morell, “Undercurrent” and “The Practice” (both 2023), depict a trio of neon-hued hands that reach upward while surrounded by the lengthy vines of morning glories. A series of ceramic works by Roxanne Jackson are delightfully surrealist: “Red Velvet Candle Holder” (2022), for instance, is an imaginative stacking of objects above a slice of cake. 

All at Once

September, 4 Hudson Street Floor 3, Kinderhook, New York
Through December 22

Notions about language and form evolve and shapeshift in our contemporary context, particularly in the digital realm. All at Once at September in Kinderhook presents the work of seven artists who explore such possibilities. “Weep” (2023), one in a series of mono-printed lithographs by Anne Beresford, consists of two almost incomprehensible vertical words (“weep” and “angels”) back-to-back. Diane Dwyer’s meticulous pencil-on-paper drawings are futuristically fantastic: “Return” (2022) features a figure eight in the middle of an architectural structure, like a ghost in the machine. “The Glass Wheel” (2024), a graphite work of charcoal on paper by Natalie Lerner, includes haphazard letters and markings floating aimlessly. A series of carbon black oil-based ink monoprints by Sam Vernon combine letters and symbols in random configurations, and “& Free &” (2024) is a brilliant encapsulation of the intersection between articulation and incoherence. 

People of the Waters that Are Never Still: A Celebration of Mohican Art and Culture

Albany Institute of History & Art, 125 Washington Avenue, Albany, New York
Through December 31

The Hudson Valley is rich with Indigenous history, and People of the Waters that Are Never Still: A Celebration of Mohican Art and Culture, curated by Tamara Aupaumut at the Albany Institute of History & Art in Albany, showcases that abundance. Exploring historical and contemporary Mohican art and culture through a selection of 40 objects by 10 artists — including paintings, sculpture, photography, a visual poem, and a community beadwork project with musical accompaniment created by members of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican community — these works consider the Earth, animals, ancestors, traditions, and identity as central themes. “She Honors the People of the Waters That Are Never Still” (2017) by Terri L. O’Connor is a stunning mixed-media work of a woman cloaked by a scene of a magical river, wherein a fish and turtle float amid thriving organic shapes that blanket her body. Tamara Aupaumut’s enchanted painting “Halving My Pye and Eating It Too” (2023) features a woman with jet black hair in a black top taking a bite of pie as a colossal cerulean wave mid-transformation into a raven towers above her, while blue birds scatter about under a distant sun. And the wall sculpture “Buck Fever” (2024) by Al Wadzinski features two bucks locked in battle by their horns adorned in elaborate metal and leather coverings and rendered in high relief. Below, images of their younger selves huddle, and below that is a carving of their fierce skeletons, still engaged in struggle — a glorious scene of youthful innocence, mature contest, and eventual demise. 

Marisol: A Retrospective

Buffalo AKG Art Museum, 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York
Through January 6, 2025

The late Venezuelan American artist Marisol’s large-scale painted and carved wood sculptures helped to define an era of Pop Art, and her exhibitions attracted huge crowds in the 1960s before she lapsed into relative obscurity. Marisol: A Retrospective at Buffalo AKG Art Museum is the most comprehensive exhibition of her work to date. Curated by Cathleen Chaffee and featuring nearly 250 artworks in a range of media — including 39 on view for the first time — plus archival material and personal ephemera, this show arrives at Buffalo after stops in Montreal and Toledo and will continue to the Dallas Museum of Art in 2025. During her nearly 60-year career, Marisol’s satirical and cleverly political sculptures embody distinct visions of culture and community, including works such as “The Hungarians” (1955), featuring a family of four with expressions of disbelief, and “John Washington, and Emily Roebling Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge for the First Time” (1989), a nod to the powerhouse woman behind the Brooklyn Bridge. Marisol’s “The Party” (1965–66) is among the most outstanding of her sculptural installations and features 15 free-standing wood sculptures of women clad in fashionable fits (some with real fabric, others painted) in a scene that comments on womanhood in New York society during the ’60s (the implied snobbery is palpable). Other works, such as the colorful “Self Portrait” (1961–62), a wood block with six legs and seven distinct heads, express her multidimensional spirit and her status as “the first girl artist with glamour,” as Warhol described her.