This week in Newly Reviewed, Travis Diehl covers the ramblings of Tinmantis, Jill Magid\u2019s politics, a gory group show and Erin Johnson\u2019s look at Lawrence, Kan., after \u201cThe Day After.\u201d <\/p>\n
Lower East Side<\/p>\n
Tinmantis<\/p>\n
Through July 25. Foreign & Domestic, 24 Rutgers Street; 929-426-4978, foreigndomestic.io<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tinmantis, a mysterious, pseudonymous artist who works out of a garage in suburban Charlotte, N.C., combines the logorrhean wit of Raymond Pettibon with the fluency of a meme account admin<\/a>, cranking out one cutting cultural observation after another.<\/p>\n This exhibition features 10 paintings on oversize poster paper, but given more gallery space, there could be hundreds. Their motifs favor aliens, medievalism and druggy doodles, delivered at formidable scale and intensity. One painting of a fortification includes a drawing of a car\u2019s remote door lock, described like a spell: \u201cwhen I click this \u2026 it locks.\u201d Our society may possess amazing technology, but we haven\u2019t outgrown the appeal of seeming magic.<\/p>\n Other works blend fandom and mockery. One picture features realistic chrome auto decals of Jeff Koons\u2019s rabbit and balloon animal sculptures, while another praises the \u201cimperial majesty\u201d of the edgelord artist Jordan Wolfson.<\/p>\n The paintings on view also include nods to black metal, William Blake\u2019s visionary illustrations of Dante\u2019s hell and Philip Guston\u2019s \u201choods\u201d paintings<\/a>. Overall, the show addresses viewers the way people soliloquize online, hoping (knowing) that others are watching. Tinmantis enumerates the world\u2019s grim checklist: Text on one of the first works lists general tragedies like addiction and despair, as well as searing personal loss: \u201cdeath of my parents,\u201d \u201cdeath of my brother.\u201d Check, check, check.<\/p>\n Chelsea<\/p>\n Jill Magid<\/p>\n Through July 17. Olney Gleason, 509 West 27th Street; 212-563-4474, olneygleason.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court\u2019s decision reaffirming birthright citizenship and the country\u2019s 250th birthday both coincide with an exhibit of work by Jill Magid focused on one particular ritual of U.S. democracy: the Rose Garden public address.<\/p>\n Several wall works, sculptures and neons engage with the vulgar patriotism of executive orders and speeches from 1973 to the present (during Magid\u2019s lifetime). A set of drawings in calligraphic text (penned by Pat Blair, a former White House chief scribe), like tag clouds, convey the frequency, in official transcripts, of applause, booing and moments of silence, among other tropes. Many of these same words appear in neon signs hanging in the main gallery that glow on and off, as if choreographed to some ghostly master speech.<\/p>\n Magid pays special attention to a peculiar piece of presidential swag: the signing pen. A large frame in the gallery contains facsimiles of a few mostly symbolic executive orders that pertain to the artist\u2019s life (and millions of others), as published in the Federal Register, on subjects including motherhood, Judaism and the arts. Magid signed each below the presidential signature, then framed the pen she had used, too. Ronald Reagan\u2019s 1986 declaration of a national day of Jewish Heritage, for instance, is mounted above a pen engraved with the phrase, \u201cNow, Therefore, I am Jewish.\u201d<\/p>\n The work asserts Magid\u2019s citizenship, and her stake in government; at the same time, the artworks demonstrate a kind of impotence, where the political gestures available to the average American feel more like spectatorship or consumption than effective participation.<\/p>\n Two bronze casts of the artist\u2019s heart, made from a medical scan, sit on short Corinthian columns, bought \u2014 per the framed certificate of authenticity nearby \u2014 from the \u201cWhite House Gift Shop\u201d (there is a privately owned business by that name, but it has no connection to the government). A third heart sits on a low set of marble stairs, pointed toward the neons, as if listening to the silent speech.<\/p>\n Chinatown<\/p>\n \u2018New Grotesque\u2019<\/p>\n Through July 26. Management, 39 East Broadway; 347-494-0438, management.nyc<\/a>.<\/p>\n This collection of meaty horrors features sculptures and paintings in a gory, gothic vein. There are impish characters with big pointy ears and multiple teats lounging on an angled rod in the sculpture \u201cChimeras (Evelyn, Marian),\u201d by Linda Marwan. In Willehad Eilers\u2019s painting \u201cDas rote pferd,\u201d a thoroughbred is getting drunk. The overt violence and bleakness carry undertones of sex and humor.<\/p>\n The show has one especially rare attraction: \u201cLe Chant de Maldoror,\u201d a large drawing by Sibylle Ruppert, a Swiss artist known for depicting psychedelic hybrids of muscles, leather and machines. This irrational combination of glistening anatomy evokes a Surrealist exquisite corpse<\/a>; rendered in white pencil on black paper, the details can seem revolting as they resolve, but the overall effect is of fascination. See this specimen while you can: Ruppert, who died in 2011, has never had a solo show in the United States.<\/p>\n Lower East Side<\/p>\n Erin Johnson<\/p>\n