Mounted in a picnic-like tableau by Sylvia Kouvali, LA based artist Shahryar Nashat’s painting Hustler_25.JPEG, 2024 is a radiant conceptual painting in varying shades of yellow and fluorescent white. Befitting the emphasis on the body that runs through Nashat’s practice, the painting, composed of acrylic gel and ink on canvas, embedded in an artist-made frame of epoxy, appears to show a pair of twisted trousers emitting their own points of light.
Other things to see around the city:
Elsewhere in Paris, Lafayette Anticipations has staged the first major survey of multidisciplinary artist Martine Syms’s work in France. Titled “Total,” it spans four floors, exploring the duality of public versus private space. Many of the video works feature Syms herself, including Lessons I-CLXXX, 2014-2018, a collection of videos on Blackness. The videos reference Kevin Young’s 2012 book The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness and include a clip of Syms against a black background, with milk dripping down her face and chest—a response to the 2014 police murder of Michael Brown.
Also at Lafayette Anticipations is “Soft Skills,” a presentation by Lebanese artist Mohamad Abdouni. Through aged and layered photographs, Abdouni creates a deeply personal and moving portrait of modern Lebanon centering family, queerness, and notions of masculinity.