NEW YORK—Scott Hug is best known as the publisher and ringmaster of the art publication K48 and its attendant exhibitions, so perhaps it’s no surprise that his art explores themes involving the media. For his December 2006 show at Locust Projects in Miami he showed works in black paint on white canvas, meant to resemble the tabloid newspapers that are the source for many of his images. For his current show at John Connelly Presents in New York, “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late,” on view through November 21, he’s enlived this technique by adding bright solid backgrounds to the pieces, which combine silk-screened images of such celebrities as Lindsay Lohan, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Janet Jackson taken from the New York Post’s gossip column “Page Six” with clichéd phrases like “Too much stress” and “Enough already.”

In an associated group of paintings—his largest works to date—Hug makes use of the Post’s covers. For these four Warholian creations, Misery, Death Plunge, Ravaged, and Smokin, Hug overlaps silk-screened newspaper covers and images—of disasters like Hurricane Charley, for example—so many times that they dissolve into an inky blotch.

At the entrance to the gallery, a life-size stand-up self-portrait of Hug, represented as a character on the Simpsons, greets visitors in a friendly manner. (Hug also uses this image on his MySpace profile.) In sharp contrast, the side gallery space is transformed into a smoky disco, complete with Rainbow Wheel of Death, a video projection that shows a much bigger version of the pesky “beachball” that takes over your Mac if it’s processing information, overworked, or about to crash—perhaps a hard drive having trouble is a metaphor for a society heading for a breakdown. Ultimately, Hug’s Poppy work leads one to think of the more pressing worldly issues that are often overlooked in our constant craving for celebrity gossip.

Below are the artist's choices for this weekend in New York:

1. Richard Prince: Spiritual America at the Guggenheim, through January 8, 2008
“I’ve always been a big fan of Prince, from his early appropriations of alien-looking fashion models and VO ads—and of course his brilliant kiddy-porn appropriation of the prepubescent Brook Shields, titled Spiritual America—to his more recent “Nurse” series. The installation at the Guggenheim, though sometimes a bit off, has a display-window feel that makes perfect sense for his work, but I wish they would have taken it further. It would have been nice to see some large, digital Marlboro-men wall murals wrapping around Wright’s rotunda. This show made me laugh, especially the white-trash, resin, monster-truck tire planters.”

2. Aleksandra Mir: Newsroom 1986-2000 at Mary Boone, through October 27
“This show totally rocks! Mir spent a few months at the New York Public Library researching New York Post and Daily News covers spanning the 15 years she lived in New York City pre-9/11: 1989 to 2000. She then re-draws them huge—like giant cartoons—with a whimsical Sharpie design team. Hot off the press! Mir turns the gallery into a comic version of a newsroom. I love how she simplifies the headlines and sub-headers and makes them even more poetic and to the point—Mir is an awesome editor. The Post should give her a job!”

3. Raymond Pettibon: Here’s Your Irony Back (The Big Picture) at David Zwirner, through October 20
“Pettibon’s new work addresses America’s foreign and shady policy in the Middle East and the war in Iraq. I like his new, dirtier, punk approach, letting the layers build up—some even have collaged elements from other drawings and often get very painterly. I especially enjoy his sense of humor, like: ‘Cancel My Subscription to the Times,’ ‘Front Page Story: You Break It, It’s Yours.’ Catch this one before it closes!”

4. I Am As You Will Be at Cheim & Read, through November 3
“This show is hauntingly beautiful and a must-see, spanning the long and rich history of art’s fascination with mortality: from James Ensor’s wicked etchings to contemporary works by Marcel Broodthaers, Matthew Barney, Jenny Holzer, Robert Morris, and Andy Warhol, to name but a few. With wars, AIDS, natural disasters—you name it—death is as alive and well today as it was back in medieval times.”

5. Keith Tyson: Large Field Array at Pace Wildenstein, through October 20
“I highly recommend seeing this show (on mushrooms). Somehow all of the 220 separate modular sculptural forms in this work are connected to each other, you, and to the universe. It’s a trip.”