Tomma Abst’s Meko (2006)Courtesy of James-Keith Brown and Eric G. Diefenbach
Artist Tomma Abts Pop-ifies the Bat Signal
Tomma Abts is a Turner Prize–winning painter whose mini-canvasses, fourteen of which are on view at the ever-improving New Museum, could break your brain with all the rays and zigs and zags. Sometimes, like here, all this gushing abstract paint reminds us of those POW!s in the old Batman TV show — or the Bat Signal itself; other times, layers of limes and pinks painted in tidy swirls and chunky squares evoke tasty fruit, like a drippy watermelon or gentle slices of lemon. At once pristine and unwieldy, the paintings will be on display through June 29. —Emma Pearse