The Art Newspaper

by Victoria Stapley-Brown

18 May 2017

Skip dessert for Mark Ryden's sugary solo show, The Art of Whipped Cream, at Paul Kasmin Gallery. The exhibition includes the fantastical studies Ryden made for costume and set designs for a new production of Whipped Cream, a whimsical 1924 ballet by Richard Strauss. The ballet follows the sugar-fuelled fantasies of a young boy under medical care after eating too many sweets. Ryden's show includes plans for counters of sugary treats and portraits of characters like Princess Praline. But there are also more frightening figures, like a needle-wielding nurse in laced-up ballet shoes. If you've still got a sweet tooth afterwards, head to the Metropolitan Opera to see the American Ballet Theater perform Whipped Cream (23 May-1 July), for which Ryden has made his studies into actual designs.