by Carol Markel

The Immortal Martha

“Martha” by Alisa Singer

artha Stewart, who introduced a generation of yuppies to hydrangeas and brought 100% cotton to the femmes ordinaire de Kmart, is the subject of an exhibit, “Martha and Me,” at Gallery Onetwentyeight (128 Rivington Street). A timely homage to the czarina of craft, the show opens on June 10, just days before Martha’s sentencing for her conviction on charges related to a stock sale. Some 60 artists explore the themes of consumerism, female identity and Stewart’s impact on our lives, in media ranging from painting to sheets. Curators Elisa Soliven and Eric Ginsburg, who are also in the show, say, “This is a funfilled show about living well.”

Through 7/5. (212-674-0244). Fri.- Sun. 2-7.

Art in an Apartment

To see this show you’ll need to make an appointment and walk up two flights to Two Flights Fine Art (46 Avenue B, Apt. 9). It will be worth the climb to see the intimate paintings of Hannah Kasper -- fictional interiors based on scenarios for her life. The delicately drawn, carefully painted works reveal rooms with a hint of activity. In a quiet kitchen a cabinet door is ajar and a pink teapot, green tea cups and a notebook with smudgy entries rest on a table. There’s even a tiny catalog from the Glasgow School of Art which the kitchen’s inhabitant may be contemplating attending. We are voyeurs in Kasper’s world, and an inviting world it is.

The exhibit will be up the stairs on Avenue B through 6/14. (917-544-6773.)

A Better Life Than Mine

A Chinese immigrant mother hopes that her daughter will never have to work 12 hours a day, six days a week in a sweatshop like she does. Another mother dreams that her children will attend college and be able to choose their careers. These thoughts are expressed in oral histories and art in a student-curated show “Toil, Sweat and Tears: Immigrant Women at Work on the Lower East Side.”

At Gallery 438 (Seward Park High School, 350 Grand Street) through 6/30. By appointment (917-562-8468).

Why did the Chicken Cross Delancey?

“Chicken” by Marcy Wasserman Design for New Museum of Contemporary Art

Marcy Wasserman makes paintings of chickens. Her exhibit, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Chicken,” is currently on view at Sunshine Factory (11 Essex Street). The vividly colored works are whimsical or gracefully elegant: all capture the vitality of “chickeness.” A teaching artist at Abrons Arts Center Henry Street Settlement, Wasserman says her paintings are “poetry recited through rich color and surface.” And if you get the urge to mix up a batch of chicken salad, a book of recipes from neighborhood cooks illustrated by the artist’s daughter, Ariel Saffer, is also at Sunshine.

Through 7/8. (212-420-7240). Mon.- Fri. 7:30-5, Sun. 9-5.

Big-time Art Moving to the Bowery

The New Museum of Contemporary Art, a Soho fixture since 1977 and one of the city’s major art venues, will open a new home at the Bowery and Prince Street in 2006. The 60,000 square foot, $35 million building will be the first art museum constructed in downtown Manhattan in the city’s modern history. The building has been designed by avantgarde architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA, Tokyo. Their seven-story composition, a dramatic stack of rectangular boxes shifted off axis in different directions, will offer exhibition space, media center, black-box theater, bookstore, cafe and wraparound rooftop terraces. Speaking of the Bowery site, the architects have said, “this street is a place where every imaginable future seems possible -- a beautiful site for the New Museum.” Welcome to the hood.