Caroll Dunham’s purple people, Mia Goldstein’s packaged art, and ethereal paintings by Giuseppe Francalanza and Christine Safa.
The art world is back up and running this September, and Tribeca is the place to be for big art in small places. Walking down Broadway and across Walker and White Streets, I am struck by how many new galleries are popping up, and even more so by how impactful and story-driven most of the exhibitions are.
Many of these shows spotlight young artists, like Giuseppe Francalanza at Chapter NY, whose dreamy, ethereal paintings remind me of High Renaissance Italian masterpieces; he's only 26, and this is his first solo exhibition in the United States. Or there's Mia Goldstein, who's even younger (born in 2001!), at Journal Gallery. Her work follows the ethos of "paint what you know," and for her, that means shipping and handling. While most of these realistic paintings depict artwork wrapped, crated, or set on a dolly, in one (based on a true story), a Magritte lays bare in the back of an SUV; apparently a collector wanted to see the work as-is, so the gallery sent it over in a car trunk. I can't imagine the insurance headache if they were rear-ended!
There's also a major new show of works by Carroll Dunham at Matthew Brown Gallery — his first since joining in 2025, after leaving Gladstone Gallery, which represented him for 20 years. In these paintings, a White male artist is surrounded by purple people, crows, and cute brown dogs. Maybe these works are a reflection of the artist's own life, but whatever the reason, I'm glad to be rid of his wrestlers. And down the block is Christine Safa's tranquil show of paintings at Bortolami, with a focused palette and an emphasis on the passing of time. Finally, a show at apexart focuses on funerary weaving practices in a small village in Vietnam. Given the breadth of shows on view now and more on the way later this month, Tribeca is a great place to see art this fall ... if you're willing to pay $10 for a latte at Rigor Hill.
Carroll Dunham: Paintings
Matthew Brown Gallery, 390 Broadway, Tribeca, Manhattan
Through October 24
Throughout his practice, Carroll Dunham uses archetypes to explore what it means to be human. His wrestler period — filled with homoerotic pink men and questionable gymnastics — was not for the faint of heart. In his latest body of work, pink is swapped for purple in a story that imagines a White male sculptor set on a planet filled with purple people. They dance, sing, and tug at the sculptor in all different directions — literally. In the 12-foot (~3.7m) canvas “Finished” (2019–25), figures pull at each limb of the painter like a vision of the artist's anxiety come to life.
Christine Safa: Noces
Bortolami Gallery, 39 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
Through October 24
Through a constrained palette of blues, oranges, and greens, Christina Safa creates sweet meditations on peace. Tiny paintings of rainbows, oceans, and sunflowers might seem trivial, but set against larger, more figurative works, it's clear that these are monumental explorations of motion, emotion, and open-ended narrative. In one of the many easy and relatable moments of tranquility in this show, a lone female figure embraces her loyal brown dog.
Mia Goldstein: Handle With Care
Journal Gallery, 45 White Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
Through October 3
Mia Goldstein’s Handle With Care shows, perhaps, the most unglamorous side of art: its packaging and handling. A number of art meme accounts such as @arthandlermag poke fun at this side of the art world, and Goldstein seems to be part playing into the joke, part serious about the fantastical care that goes into moving art and where it goes (namely, into collectors’ homes, never to be seen again). Art sleuths can point out works they know in more precarious positions: a Claes Oldenburg hamburger vacuum-sealed and shoved into an elevator, two men holding a wrapped Francis Bacon on a dolly, or even the back of a Piet Mondrian painting, balanced on a dirty sneaker.
Weaving a Day, Mourning A Life: The Mother and Daughter-in-Law of Phúc Sen
apexart, 291 Church Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
Through October 24
In northern Vietnam, the N’ng An people weave different patterns each day, creating scraps of fabric that become funerary garments after an elder’s death. Following the mourning period, a daughter of the deceased repurposes the garment and wears it to honor and represent the cycle of life. Through three bodies of work that coexist wonderfully, this exhibition explores the ritual through moving photographs of one family, a video installation depicting the village's loom, and a re-creation of the textile itself.
Giuseppe Francalanza: All of My Angels Wear a Rag: I The Tuner
Chapter NY, 60 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
Through October 17
If you can get past the cringe air conditioner sculptures graffitied with phrases like “k.” and “baby” in the front gallery at Chapter, you will find five ethereal paintings that are worth your time. Though the press release claims a musical tuner inspired these works, I can see Da Vinci, Botticelli, and Raphael in them: Francalanza builds up pigment only to wipe it away, revealing figures that are physically present, though their minds seem to drift far away.