Lena Henke
Real Fine Arts; Through January 6; Sat-Sun, noon-6 p.m.; 673 Meeker Ave., nr. Sutton St., Greenpoint
Henke’s cantilevered sculpture, made with materials like plastic and construction hardware, are minimalist configurations transformed into something ghostly, strange, un-artlike. With images of statuary printed on their surfaces, these objects transform into carriers of information outside themselves, three-dimensional JPEGs, texts from the future-past.
Christian Marclay—The Clock
The Museum of Modern Art; Through January 21; 11 W. 53rd St., nr. Sixth Ave.; 212-708-9400
The return of Marclay’s film, painstakingly assembled out of time-specific clips from classic movies, a 24-hour odyssey of chronology.
Ferdinand Hodler: View to Infinity
Neue Galerie; Through January 7; 1048 Fifth Ave., at 86th St.; 212-628-6200
You may not know his name, but without this Swiss-born Symbolist, we might not have had Klimt or Schiele.
David Esterly
W.M. Brady and Co.; January 8 through January 18; 22 E. 80th St., nr. Madison Ave.; 212-249-7212
An exhibition of intricate high-relief confections by the celebrated limewood carver. Coincides with the publication of his new memoir.
David LaChapelle
Paul Kasmin; Through January 19; 293 Tenth Ave., at 27th St.; 212-563-4474
LaChapelle’s new images capture the forlorn, destroyed celebrity wax figures from Dublin’s National Wax Museum and other collections—piles of fractured faces, fingerless hands, and faceless noses, plus a beheaded Leonardo DiCaprio—to create a disturbing meditation on the ephemeral and often destructive nature of celebrity.
Charles Ray
Matthew Marks; Through January 12; 522 W. 22nd St., nr. Tenth Ave.; 212-243-0200
Charles Ray’s figurative realism is so clearly fabricated that it turns abstract before our wondering eyes. Three sculptures in carved steel are each a little bigger than life-size: One is a standing naked man. Another bends to tie his nonexistent shoes. A homeless woman leans over, asleep, on a massive bench. Ray is at the top of his form, and his forms are more powerful than ever.
Mary Ellen Mark
Janet Borden; Through January 12; 560 Broadway, 6th fl., at Prince St.; 212-431-0166
To create her unique black-and-white portraits of young couples, Mark made use of one of the five working 20-by- 24-inch Polaroid Land cameras—expensive and unwieldy tools that require precise lighting and a trained operator but produce gloriously detailed large-format prints in 90 seconds.