Wonder Women: A.I.R. Gallery’s Opening Night Trifecta

Last Thursday night at least one gallery was experiencing some post-tryptophan bliss.  At 111 Front Street, A.I.R. Gallery boasted three simultaneous openings, all on view until January 2, 2011.

Law and Order’s Sam Waterston was in attendance for daughter Elisabeth Waterston’s opening Landscapes, which opened in A.I.R.’s Fellowship Gallery.  According to Waterson’s artist statement, her “paintings deal with the force of space: the pressure of the vast upon the small, the flat upon the deep, the dark upon the light, and the relationship between a swath of color and the objects that resist it, pierce it, and give it dimension.” Father and daughter are pictured, at right, mingling in the crowd.

Making the Leap: Crossing Borders, in A.I.R.’s Gallery II, offered up a curatorial delight. It features work by fifteen Asian American women artists. Saeri Kiritani’s 100 lbs of Rice, a life-size rice and noodle figure, is the tactile nucleus of the show – the perimeter of the gallery is secured by a mix of photography, sculpture, ceramic, painting and video.

The wall mounted video loop is a visual playground. Kyoung Eun Kang’s, Islands, an awkward documentation of the artist’s slow and barefoot traverse through a crowded block of Manhattan is painfully fun and frustratingly uncomfortable to watch. Yi-Hsin Tzeng’s, The Last Painting in Modernism is a quiet and colorful sequence of the artist drowning herself in paint.

Nearby, Sin-Ying Ho’s porcelain vase titled, Bella Series No.2 sits on a pedestal, tucked into the corner – it is seemingly the most traditional in terms of its presentation – an ironic guise for this particularly obscure piece, adorned with twin Wonder Women.

Around the corner, Gallery II, presented At Her Age, a group show curated by Martha Wilson. The show is an examination of women during various phases of life. The work addresses body, age, sexuality and the affect they have on evolving personal and social relationships. The central piece, a ‘mobile’ of red fluid pouches, hung almost lifelessly until set in motion by the abundance of attendees passing by.

Check out the slideshow below for images from opening night.