Black Is, Black Ain't
Runs through June 8 at the Renaissance Society
Race is the two-ton gorilla in the room, until it's not. Even as racial relations have undeniably improved in the last half-century, racial identity and the social significance of race remain complicated. Taking its name from a passage in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the "Black Is, Black Ain't" group show makes the most of the tensions, retreating and recurring, semantic and tangible, surrounding racial and cultural differences. Examining a harsh history, Jason Lazarus peeks in on Emmett Till's exhumation and David Levinthal shoots blackface figurines. Revisionist portraits by Andres Serrano and Hank Willis Thomas and collages by Deborah Grant serve as barometers for personal politics in a stratified society. Thomas Johnson's videos throw wildly uncomfortable perceptions back at the audience while Elizabeth Axtman internalizes, by lip-syncing "American Classics," mixed-race baggage in a black-and-white world.
Urban Archeology
Runs through May 31 at Walsh Gallery
Technology and social networks grow more impenetrable by the hour but, as Li Lin Lee demonstrates, our visual vocabulary remains quite accessible. Lee's deceptively simple canvases collapse centuries of history, imbuing common shapes and invented logos with a type of ancient reverence, telling stories in a language we strongly intuit, if only vaguely comprehend.
Karen Kilimnik
Runs through June 8 at the Museum of Contemporary Art
Probing subjects from ballet, literature and glamour-magazine heroines' forced idealism to the murderous anti-heroines in the news, Kilimnick's work is both a cry for help and a call to arms. The material influencing these arresting portraits and sketches is as varied as the materials she flings across her trademark "scatter art" installations.
Justin Cooper: Thread
Runs through May 31 at Gallery 400
Intertwining fifty garden hoses around Gallery 400's dogleg space, Justin Cooper's installation visualizes the world's endless clashes of opinions and the internal contradictions we carry but try to compartmentalize. "Thread" curiously satisfies from a distance but closer engagement provides tactile satisfaction, as gallery guests twist, bend and limbo through a network of common household items.
Building Pictures
Runs through May 31 at the Museum of Contemporary Photography
Architectural photography, so tightly controlled by preservationists and realtors, gets deconstructed by the eight contributors to this fascinating show, pulling viewers in conflicting directions. Chris Mottalini lifts the blinders, opening our eyes to Modernist abandonment, while Ionisio Gonzalez obscures his native Sao Paolo in mashing-up the lauded and reviled residences of its stratified social classes.
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