The Best Art Exhibitions to See This Month

Image via Complex Original

Location: Galerie Perrotin, 909 Madison Ave., New York 10021

Dates: Sept. 4 - Oct. 4, 2014

Most people wish they could avoid the rules and responsibilities of the real world at one point or another, and Farhad Moshiri is no exception. The Iranian artist calls his first solo exhibition in New York “Float” to express his desire to escape reality and enter a fantasy world of freedom. The name of show also indicates Moshiri's knack for exploring a range of different art genres and media. For instance, his canvases merge high and low brow art, incorporating Pop art references, conceptual art, comics, ads, classic portraiture, and religious iconography. His hodgepodge style speaks to the different cultures that defined Moshiri's growth as an artist.

Location: Lisson Gallery, 52-54 Bell St., London NW1 5DA

Dates: Sept. 17 - Nov. 1, 2014

While the clay creatures and animations in Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg's “The Gates of the Festival” show may look playful at first, there's something dark about this colorful exhibition. In fact, the two artists created psychologically charged settings that illustrate our most human and animalistic emotions. With help from Berg's hypnotic music, Djurberg has dramatized and depicted some of our basest instincts, like jealousy, revenge, greed, and lust. Containing sculptures, projections, film, music, and a whole lot of neon, “The Gates of the Festival” is sure to be quite a trip.

Location: Jonathan LeVine Gallery, 557C W. 23rd St., New York 10011

Dates: Sept. 4 - Oct. 4, 2014

You may have recently seen DALeast's art throughout city streets. Now, the Chinese-born, South African-based artist has taken his airy, dreamlike compositions to Jonathan LeVine Gallery. His second solo exhibition at the gallery, “The Laten Photon” was inspired by quantum physics. “The photon is an elementary particle that stimulates vision, when its structure is composed of dark matter, that causes atoms to collide and particles transform. We perceive these microscopic collisions as light,” the exhibition's press release explains. Just like photons, DALeast's subjects also seem to burst and overflow with energy.

Location: The Outsiders, 8 Greek St., London W1D 4DG

Dates: Sept. 5 - Oct. 4, 2014

Ian Francis' canvases look like screenshots taken from a film. After a recent massive exhibition at Lazarides Rathbone, the Bristol-based artist will take over The Outsiders London with his abstract paintings. Combining elements of painting and drawing, Francis illustrated enigmatic characters in a swirl of colors. While his paintings may look romantic and removed from reality, they are actually quite relevant. Through his works, Francis references the media's tendency to flood the Internet with sensationalist content and imagery.

Location: White Walls, 886 Geary St., San Francisco

Dates: Sept. 13 - Oct. 4, 2014

C215 has been called, by various UK publications, “France's answer to Banksy.” Although we know little about the equally enigmatic French street artist, we do know that he has a daughter named Nina. In fact, his upcoming show at White Walls is dedicated entirely to her. Using a vivid color palette and hand-cut stencils, C215 has created a series of portraits of Nina.

Location: Shooting Gallery, 886 Geary St., San Francisco

Dates: Sept. 13 - Oct. 4, 2014

Thailand-born artist Pakpoom Silaphan reworks found objects, such as metal advertising signs and wooden Pepsi and Coca-Cola crates, turning them into his own Pop art interpretations. Just like Andy Warhol, Silaphan's works are commentaries on globalization, mass consumerism, and the “West-Obsessed” world in which we live. Next week, you'll be able to see them on view at Shooting Gallery.

Location: Kavi Gupta Gallery, 835 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago 60607

Dates: Sept. 19 - Nov. 15, 2014

Mickalene Thomas' upcoming show, “I was born to do great things,” allows viewers to get to know the late Sandra Bush, who gave birth to the great artist. For her first solo exhibition with Kavi Gupta Gallery, Thomas will transform the space into her mother's home, filling it with cast bronzed objects that once belonged to her mother. Personal items like clothing and jewelry have been destroyed through the process of casting and preserved as objects of memory.

Location: The Seventh Letter Flagship Store and Gallery, 346 N. Fairfax Ave. Los Angeles, 90036

Dates: Aug. 30 - Sept. 13, 2014

Los Angeles gets a taste of New York City this month. Graffiti artist Blade, who decked out subway trains in the 1970s, has taken over The Seventh Letter's gallery space with a series of throwback canvases. Blade created large-scale spray paint and paint marker works on canvas and NYC subway maps that harken back to both his earlier years and the golden era of subway art. Then there's Freedom, a graffiti artist who grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Known for painting the famous Freedom Tunnel from 1980 until 1996, he's brought some of his own masterpieces to L.A.

Location: Marianne Boesky Gallery, 509 W. 24th St., New York 10011

Dates: Sept. 4 - Oct. 18, 2014

The centerpiece of Roxy Paine's “Denuded Lens” is a spectacle familiar to anyone who has ever flown. Checkpoint, the most recent addition to his latest series “Dioramas,” is a room-sized interpretation of an airport security stop. The only difference is viewers won't feel the need to rush by this piece of work. “At once familiar and foreign, Checkpoint offers the opportunity to visually and cerebrally examine a liminal place that is usually only experienced through a rushed physical encounter,” the show's press release explains. However, Paine also wants you to know his work is not an exact replica of what we experience in real life. That same security stop we are so familiar with has been distorted.

Location: Gladstone Gallery, 515 W. 24th St., New York 10011

Dates: Sept. 13 - Oct. 11, 2014

Ordinarily, parents are cautioned against letting their children touch artwork on display. At “Fault Lines,” however, things will be a little different. The performance piece by Allora & Calzadilla will feature 8 and 9-year-old boys who will run amok through the gallery and clamber atop stone sculptures that the artists have designed and modeled off the earth's fault lines. At the same time, the two frolicsome kids will also be singing a song with lyrics made up of “historic insults” as part of the performance, like “You must be the reason for the contraception!”

Location: Pace Gallery, 534 W. 25th St., New York 10001

Dates: Sept. 12 - Oct. 18, 2014

Fred Wilson likes to question assumptions built around of history, culture, and race through his work. He often appropriates decorative art and national symbols, breaking them down and presenting alternative views of familiar imagery. His current show, “Sculptures, Paintings, and Installations: 2004-2014,” comprises of works he has created over the past 10 years.

Location: Pace Gallery, 508 W. 25th St., New York 10001

Dates: Sept. 5 - Nov. 1, 2014

Although it's nearly fall in New York, Pace Gallery is celebrating the season of spring with David Hockney's “The Arrival of Spring.” At first glance, the British artist's lush depictions of Woldgate, East Yorkshire might look like paintings rendered on canvas, but they're actually drawings that have been done on an iPad. 78-year-old Hockney bought an iPad in 2010 and has essentially been hooked to his tablet. He drew on the device for six months before starting his “Arrival of Spring” series, which documents each day between Jan. 1 and May 31, 2011.

Location: 1AM Gallery, 1000 Howard St., San Francisco 94103

Dates: Sept. 4 - Oct. 3, 2014

You'll feel as if you're walking through a dream when checking out RATUR's “Becoming Lucid” exhibition at 1AM Gallery. The show features a collection of oil paintings done on canvas by the French street artist. RATUR has based each of his pieces off a computer-edited photo. Using the original images as guide, he manipulates the depth of field in each of his paintings so the foreground is vivid and the background fades away. Through this process, each piece looks hazy, dreamlike, and quite beautiful.

Location: Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, 505 W. 24th St., New York 10011

Dates: Sept. 12 - Oct. 18, 2014

Studying José Parlá's canvases is like looking at an abstract record of the Brooklyn-based artist's life. Continuing to work in his signature method of conceptual storytelling for his upcoming show “IN MEDIA RES,” Parlá has rendered impressions of the most notable moments from his life, starting with his youth and including memories from his travels around the world. “Time is very much at stake, and each image is an effort to demarcate the passing of time,” the press release elaborates. His second solo exhibition at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery will include new paintings, sculptures, and a large-scale mural installation.

Location: Martha Otero Gallery, 820 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles 90046

Dates: Aug. 30 - Sept. 13, 2014

Best known for his roles on Hawaii Five-0 and Entourage, Scott Caan has established himself as a talented photographer over the past decade, and his works are currently on view inside Martha Otero Gallery. The actor-turned-artist shoots with a photojournalist's eye, lying low and capturing moments that show the public a different view of a celebrity's life. Instead of typical red carpet photos, Caan shifts his position, shooting from unique perspectives. “Photography is the one thing I can do where I don't have to answer to anybody,” he told Martha Otero Gallery in a statement. “In a sense, it is my selfish way of saying, 'These are the photographs that I like.'”

Location: The Curatorium, 60 S. Front St., Hudson, N.Y. 12534

Dates: July 19 - Oct. 11, 2014

For art lovers in New York who feel like taking a day trip out of the city, the Curatorium has an ongoing exhibition of artist Daniel Jocz's work. For his show “Like Garage Band,” Jocz has cut, manipulated, and assembled massive aluminum panels. The final product is a composite of panels that have been finished with graffiti spray paint and put together to create a larger narrative.

Location: Jonathan LeVine Gallery, 529 W. 20th St., New York 10011

Dates: Sept. 6 - Oct. 4, 2014

Portraiture isn't the same as what it used to be. These days, anyone with a camera or iPhone can take a portrait of someone else. This has inspired artists like Ivan Alifan, Jenny Morgan, Juan Francisco Casa, Lu Cong, and Melissa Coke to distort their subjects, adding an element of mystery to their works. Alifan, whose work is pictured above, covers his models in thick, dripping white liquid to both obscure and accentuate his subjects' features. At the same time, his works are literally whitewashed in sexual subtext. See the rest of these next-level portraits at Jonathan LeVine Gallery when it opens later this week.

Location: C24 Gallery, 514 W. 24th St., New York 10011

Dates: Sept. 4 - Oct. 25, 2014

Prepare to enter an altered state of reality when checking out Martin Durazo and Ryan Perez's show at C24 Gallery. The two Los Angeles-based artists' canvases are splattered in vibrant colors and vivid lines. Specifically, Durazo combines elements of high-design with gritty squeegee scrapings of paint in his attempt to make viewers experience “alternative spiritualties,” according to the press release. Perez, on the other hand meshes computer-generated and hand-painted elements.

Location: Leila Heller Gallery, 568 W. 25th St., New York 10001

Dates: Sept. 4 - Oct. 18, 2014

Cereal and technology may not seem to have a direct correlation, but they inspired Rachel Lee Hovnanian's “Plastic Perfect” solo exhibition at Leila Heller Gallery. Back in the '60s, commercials had every mother convinced that genetically modified cereals were okay to feed their children. These days, society has become more aware of the chronic health issues that result from eating such products. Now, however, Hovnanian is cautioning us against the effects of technology. She suggests that in 50 years, peoples' obsession with technology may lead to the creation of genetically modified babies.

Location: Nahmad Contemporary, 980 Madison Ave., New York 10075

Dates: Sept. 3 - Oct. 1, 2014

Guillaume Bruère is a Berlin-based French artist who has shown work all around Europe. Now, he's exhibiting in New York at Nahmad Contemporary for the first time. “Vanilla,” which Bruère named after his assistant, includes large-scale portraits of his friends and acquaintances. He's rendered them using in a combination of mediums such as oil pastel, watercolor, and graphite, further blurring the line between painting and drawing.