Cultured

There’s simply not enough time to see all the art in the world. In CULTURED’s new monthly column, Duly Noted, New York contributing arts editor Jacoba Urist cuts through the noise to tell you about the most important art shows and why you need to see them. To start: Lower Manhattan, her stomping ground for over 20 years, and where Nino Mier will make his grand East Coast debut this week with abstract maestra Jana Schröder.

As a contemporary art journalist, I’m always asked two questions: “what should I see this weekend?” and “what should I buy?” The good news first: the art world has never been bigger or more dynamic. According to the 2022 Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report, sales are already outperforming the year before the pandemic. New York’s TriBeCa, gathering steam as a significant arts district since the fall of 2019, has experienced an explosion post-shutdown, giving Chelsea a bona fide run for its money. Speaking of competition, the specter of Los Angeles as the country’s cultural epicenter certainly looms. While in the Hamptons, Hauser & Wirth has reverted to a seasonal schedule and Phillips has abandoned Southampton. At the same time, Palm Beach continues to blossom as an ecosystem with sustained programming from the likes of Lehmann Maupin, Pace, and Gavlak Gallery. The bad news? There’s a deluge of emerging names and top-notch spaces—with no sign of slowing, especially from the smaller, sexier galleries. Yet we still have the same amount of time on our calendar, perhaps even less with a booming fair circuit that vies for attention.

Enter: Duly Noted. Join me the last Thursday of each month as I cut through the noise to tell you about the most important art shows and why you can’t miss them. This week we begin in my home turf—no dethroning New York as the white-hot, nucleus just yet—but throughout the year, I’ll be coming to you from Los Angeles, Mexico City, Paris, and beyond with concise reporting and reviews. My goal is to keep Duly Noted always about the artists by highlighting the painters and sculptors that will define the decade ahead and dominate buyer’s wishlists. By pushing their medium to new heights, each artist reminds us of Covid’s enduring truth: there’s no substitute for experiencing art in real life.

In My Queue

Coinciding with the artist’s solo exhibition at the Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (where she lives), Tania Pérez Córdova’s “Precipitation” opens at Tina Kim Gallery next week. It’s a chance to see a body of work that I’ve been highly anticipating: a series that uses plastic leaves that resemble a kind of unsettling botanic infestation and are adorned with jewelry chains. A group of hand blown glass sculptures will also be on view. Interspersed throughout the gallery space, the pieces evoke, according to the artist, how various breathing patterns can induce different psychological states. Barely mid-career, and already with a 2017 Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago show under her belt, Córdova is an artist to watch closely. My favorite work of hers thus far, Subtraction 1, 2018, finds a Le Creuset Dutch casserole dish remelted in its own mold to sublime, Mad Max effect.

“Precipitation” by Tania Pérez Córdova will be on view from February 2 to March 25, 2023 at Tina Kim Gallery in New York.

Stay tuned for my next chapter. After a whirlwind of Frieze and Felix week in LA, Duly Noted will return in February to update you on the best of LA art at the moment.