Chéri Samba, "Le secret d'un petit poisson devenu grand," 2007. Acrylic and glitter on canvas; 53 1/8 x 78 3/4 in (135 x 200 cm).
Chéri Samba, "Le secret d'un petit poisson devenu grand," 2007. Acrylic and glitter on canvas; 53 1/8 x 78 3/4 in (135 x 200 cm).
‘Chéri Samba'
Through June 15. Venus Over Manhattan, 55 Great Jones Street, Manhattan; 212-980-0700, venusovermanhattan.com.
As in the case of Manny Vega’s work, the art of Xenobia Bailey has a prominent public presence in New York City. Her gleaming glass mosaic “Funktional Vibrations,” a 2015 Metropolitan Transportation Authority commission, arches, like a sky of shooting stars, over the entrance to the Hudson Yards subway station on 34th Street. Yet her current exhibition at the gallery Venus Over Manhattan is her first solo show here in some 20 years.
The other, at Venus Over Manhattan’s second space, a few doors away from the Bailey show, is the first local solo exhibition since 1991 of the celebrated painter Chéri Samba, who lives and works in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There, at 67, he is still going strong, like the international market for contemporary African figure painting that his career helped start. (Venus Over Manhattan, 55 Great Jones Street, through June 15).
