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2017 Year in Review: Unframed

Every month, Design Milk’s resident art expert, David Behringer, pounds the pavement of New York City to check out the best gallery exhibits and art shows he can find. Take a visual gander back at the art he covered in our Unframed column throughout 2017 – hint: it’s all incredible.

12.21.17 | By
2017 Year in Review: Unframed

This is Wood: The Sculpture of Matt Johnson
Matt Johnson presented 4 cardboard boxes, 5 rolls of painters tape, 2 broken styrofoam chunks, and more garbage… that were all 100% carved and painted wood.

marked by stigmata, 2017 (detail)

On Pins: Elliott Hundley’s Epic Collages
We took a look at Elliott Hundley’s manically overwhelming collages, which extended so far off the canvas that they were rightfully called “sculptures”.

Tara Donovan. Detail of “Composition (Cards)” 2017. Photographed by David Behringer. All other images captured by Kerry Ryan McFatey. © Tara Donovan, courtesy of Pace Gallery

Tara Donovan: Vertical Poetry
Tara Donovan’s newest wall sculptures were composed of THOUSANDS of white styrene cards that were individually stacked, glued, and rotated 90 degrees.

Untitled, 2014-2017, Various putties, spray paint

Matt Hoyt’s Chrysalis: Evidence of Time
Matt Hoyt is famous for tiny sculptures and his newest works took a risky turn for an artist famous for small: they’re slightly bigger.

Detail of Sharp LC-90LE657U 90-inch Aquos HD
1080p 120Hz 3D Smart LED TV
, 2017

Breaking Technology: Walead Beshty’s New Sculpture
LA artist Walead Beshty’s destructively perfect show “Open Source” was on view at Petzel Gallery in NYC, and it included a full range of misused technology.

Henrique Oliveira, Devir, 2017

Henrique Oliveira’s Devir: An Invasive Sculpture
Artist Henrique Oliveira has been building massive organic sculptures for over a decade and FINALLY one of his sculptures sprouted in New York City.

Jean Blackburn, Untitled, 2014 (detail)

Broken Chairs and Floating Trash: 4 Mysterious Summer Artworks
Hiding in the Lower East Side this past summer were four magical artworks in two different group shows that were even more surprising with closer inspection.

Erik Sommer: Volvo 240, 2017

Art Destination: Erik Sommer’s Concrete Car
On view at the one-of-a-kind Fastnet viewing room, was Erik Sommer’s sculpture/installation “Volvo 240”: a real Volvo, coated completely in concrete.

Basin, 2017 (detail)

Flexible Screens: The Sculpture of Daniel Canogar
Daniel Canogar’s latest high-tech artworks were a triple-threat. Each was a mesmerizing digital painting and a seductive sculptural form.

Maserati, 2012

Warping Reality: The Sculpture of Wim Delvoye
Wim Delvoye’s latest exhibition felt like a competition between machine precision and hand-made perfection where too much is not enough and everybody wins.

Rita McBride, Particulates

Lasers in a Gallery: Rita McBride’s Particulates
16 high-intensity lasers cut through the misty air of a dark garage in West Chelsea in the latest work, Particulates, by artist Rita McBride.

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.