Link to Post:
http://www.haberarts.com/2013/05/pour-it-on/
John Haber reviews the two part exhibition Pour at Asya Geisberg Gallery and Lesley Heller Workspace, New York, on view through May 24, 2013. The shows, curated by Elisabeth Condon and Carol Prusa, feature works by Ingrid Calame, Kris Chatterson, Roland Flexner, Angelina Gualdoni, Carrie Moyer, Carolanna Parlato, David Reed, Jackie Saccoccio, and Carrie Yamaoka.
Haber writes that "the nine artists in 'Pour,' ... do that and more... Most of all, though, this is a revisiting of the pour. For these artists, pour it on becomes as much metaphor as medium. It is that eternal dance between presence and absence and then some—that trace of a trace of a trace."
Link to Post:
http://www.artslant.com/la/articles/show/34494
Andrew Berardini reviews the exhibition Sam Gilliam: Hard-Edge Paintings 1963-1966 at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, on view through May 11, 2013.
Link to Post:
http://www.pirihalasz.com/blog.htm?post=904229
Piri Halasz reviews ten current and recent painting exhibitions in New York including: Jim Dine and Thomas Nozkowski at Pace, Going Into the Dark at The Painting Center, Walt Kuhn: American Modern at DC Moore, Marina Adams: Coming Through Strange at Hionas Gallery, Walter Robinson: Indulgences, Recent Paintings & Works on Paper at Dorian Gray (through March 31), Franz Kline: Coal and Steel at Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, Christine Hughes and Francine Kornfeld at Art 101, Jean-Michel Basquiat at Gagosian (through April 6), and Thornton Willis: Steps at Elizabeth Harris (through April 13).
Link to Post:
http://abstractcritical.com/article/john-elderfield-on-painted-on-21st-street-helen-frankenthaler-from-1950-to-1959/
Sam Cornish interviews John Elderfield about Helen Frankenthaler's work from the 1950s on the occasion of the exhibition Helen Frankenthaler: Painted on 21st Street - 1950 -1959, at Gagosian Gallery, New York, on view through April 13, 2013.
Elderfield remarks: "Looking again at about thirty of Helen’s great 1950s works, I was especially struck by three things: 1. The extraordinary variety of inventive mark-making in many of the paintings, which belies the idea that Colour Field painting was about creating homogeneous surfaces—but, then, Helen was a second-generation Abstract Expressionist, not a Colour Field painter, in the 1950s. 2. The over-all depictive thrust of these canvases. There are some works that read primarily as non-referential, abstract works, but the majority are depictive re-presentations of observed, remembered, and imagined phenomena created by 'abstract' means—which is also to say that she was intolerant of received notions of depiction and abstraction. 3. The fact that every single work is different. The means may be similar, but are certainly not the same from work to work. The organization of certain works are also similar, but never identical. And the imaginative subject of individual works are always different. She never repeats herself."
Link to Post:
http://www.artcritical.com/2013/03/11/marina-adams/
David Cohen reviews the exhibition Marina Adams: Coming Thru Strange at Hionas Gallery, New York, on view through March 24, 2013.
Link to Post:
http://abstractcritical.com/note/william-perehudoff-1919-2013/
John McLean remembers painter William Perehudoff (1919 - 2013).
McLean writes: "John Golding’s book 'Paths to the Absolute' traces the numinous aspects of abstract painting from their beginnings in the works of Kandinsky, Malevich, and Mondrian to the development of those qualities in the paintings of the Americans Pollock, Newman, Rothko and Still. Perehudoff’s work fits into the kind of epiphanic painting characterised by Golding. ... I cannot think of any other artist who rang so many changes on colour: light hues, dark hues, primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary and so on… dissonances and harmonies, thick paint and thin, sometimes all on the same canvas, with an exquisite sense of placement. And all this without ever losing tension across the painting."
Link to Post:
http://leftbankartblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/once-more-with-helen.html
Carl Belz recalls how the installation of the 1981 exhibition Frankenthaler: The 1950s at the Rose Art Museum became "a memorable collaboration with the artist herself."
Belz writes: "We walked through the show together, Helen looking quietly at the pictures, remembering them, for in many cases she had not seen them in the flesh since they left her hand more than 20 years earlier. Certainly she had not seen them assembled as she was seeing them at that moment, and I began to realize that what I assumed was a triumph--the full spectrum of her first decade of achievement--was also her vulnerability, a laying bare of her initial urge in the direction of genuinely ambitious painting. She admitted as much, acknowledging the nervousness she had felt on her way to the museum, but she also said she was deeply satisfied with how everything looked, and she congratulated me for my knowledge of, and sensitivity to, the work, asking in conclusion if I would mind if we rearranged a few pictures."
Link to Post:
http://hyperallergic.com/65270/the-painterly-cravings-of-larry-poons/
Jason Andrew blogs about the exhibition Larry Poons: New Paintings at Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, on view through March 2, 2013.
Andrew writes: "I take a step back from the frame and then focus on the surface. Each painting, every one, radiates a Dionysian surge of color against color, paint against paint. If my observations seem general it’s because Poons wants us to see rather than contextualize. He wants us to feel rather than interpret. In pure painting terms, it’s the essence of these paintings that comes out and bowls you over. They originate from chromatic worlds of music and color, creating along the way a visual and emotional sensation ripe with gesture, raw energy, and improvisation."
Link to Post:
http://elisabethcondon.blogspot.com/2013/02/from-color-field-to-figure-friday-in.html
Elisabeth Condon photo blogs visits to several painting shows on view in Chelsea: Peter Williams at Foxy Production (through March 23) Charlie Roberts: Girl Power at Kravets Wheby (through February 23) Shinique Smith: Bold As Love at James Cohan Gallery (through March 16), and Caro, Frankenthaler, Louis, Motherwell, Noland, Olitski, Stella, curated by Hayden Dunbar at Paul Kasmin Gallery (through February 23).
Link to Post:
http://www.pirihalasz.com/blog.htm?post=884652
Piri Halasz writes about several current and recent painting exhibitions on view in Manhattan that together provide a sweeping view of abstraction over the last 70 years. The shows include: Conceptual Abstraction at Hunter College's Times Square Gallery, Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and Frank Stella at Mitchell-Innes & Nash (through November 24), Hans Hofmann: Works on Paper from the 1940s at the New York Studio School, curated by Karen Wilkin (through January 5), and Ronnie Landfield: Where It All Began at the Kenny Gallery, High School of Art & Design.
