Rapaciously Yours, the first major solo exhibition of works by South African artist Frances Goodman, is on display now at Richard Taittinger Gallery, 154 Ludlow St. The show is a breathtaking demonstration of skill and wit, managing to strike that exceedingly difficult balance between gravity and grace.
Greeting the viewer at the front of the gallery is Violaceous (2015), composed of a staggering collection of acrylic nails painstakingly fixed to a sculptural base. Hundreds of faux nails (a mere fraction of the 25,000 used throughout the show) in various shades of bruised pink and purple swarm out from the wall into a puckered mound. It’s an uncomfortably organic piece, reminiscent of a malignant growth, the lips of a vagina, or as the artist has observed, a spider’s nest in the impossibly tense moments before it bursts with life – hideous, fascinating life.