Link to Post:
http://www.artcritical.com/2013/05/10/stanley-whitney/
Deven Golden reviews the recent exhibition Stanley Whitney: Other Colors I Forget at Team Gallery, New York.
Golden writes: " the work displays a beguiling simplicity. There are sixteen or twenty rectangles in each square painting and they are, more or less, evenly apportioned four down and four, or five, across – not by ruled measurement but an equally exact though ineffable idea of rightness. These are formal paintings, grids of quadrilaterals, but casual and unpretentious, like a conversation one might have about the checkered tablecloths at your favorite trattoria. The same sense of ease holds true for the paint application, and for a few moments one might get an impression that the brushwork is almost careless. This is, however, a manifestly false reading and it quickly transmutes into an awareness of acute fastidiousness... Whitney nonchalantly weaves together nearly invisible yet precise technique, lightly imposed yet persistent structure, and a simple yet sophisticated use of color."
Link to Post:
http://hyperallergic.com/70299/whos-afraid-of-hot-pink-canary-yellow-and-midnight-blue/
John Yau reviews two exhibitions that foreground color: Paul Behnke: An Awful Rainbow at Kathryn Markel Gallery (through May 18) and Stanley Whitney: Other Colors I Forget at Team Gallery, New York (through May 12).
Yau notes that "In Behnke’s best paintings, our focus shifts between dissonance and order, large and small, solid planes and scraped 'unfinished' areas. Where an earlier layer has not been painted over, its color punches through the hole and grab us. Hot and cool colors abut, as well as complementary ones. You have the feeling that Behnke is trying to pull out all the stops, that he wants structure and chaos to coincide." Whitney, Yau writes, "extends his gamut, going from thin, crackled surfaces, to washy, translucent layers exposing painted over shapes, to solid planes of color. And he might suddenly paint wet into wet, suspending brushstrokes of maroon in a green rectangle. Clearly, there is little or no plan when he begins with one color and moves to the next. It is comparable to writing a poem word by word, rather than line by line."
Link to Post:
http://bombsite.com/issues/123/articles/7094
David Reed interviews painter Stanley Whitney.
Discussing color, Whitney comments: "I think artists have tried to explore color but not in a real worldly sense. When I say that I mean that if you go to India, there are worlds and worlds of color—10,000 shades of orange on the street. I really want the hand to be a part of it. I want color to shift if I put it on thicker or thinner. I want the human touch... You know, I love to look at Courbet, or Velázquez, or Goya, it’s like the red slash. I want to have some of those elements in my painting. I never really paint subject matter, I just like what the paint is doing. So for me to go look at, say, Velázquez is really important. I want those ideas about color, light, and touch—I just want all those aspects of painting... If I look at Courbet’s Portrait of Jo (la belle Irlandaise), I might be thinking about the way he painted that hair, the weight of the color. Or, in a Manet, I might look at what the white in the dress is doing. He changed the touch, and it’s a cloud. Those are the things that interest me and that I’m trying to adopt. But it took me a long time to get those kinds of colors. Earlier, I painted marks in a gray field. I couldn’t make a lot of color. I couldn’t really control the space."
Link to Post:
http://www.thenation.com/article/167680/empty-and-full-stanley-whitney-and-jacqueline-humphries
Barry Schwabsky reflects on two recent exhibitions: Stanley Whitney: Left to Right at Team Gallery and Jacqueline Humphries at Greene Naftali Gallery.
Schwabsky writes: "For a long time.. the abstract painter had to negotiate the anxiety that he might be doing or showing too little; more recently he has also had to worry about doing too much. Yet between the two extremes there has always been a sweet spot where a little and a lot, austerity and sensuality, have coalesced." Schwabsky finds this "between" In the work of both Whitney and Humphries.
Link to Post:
http://youtu.be/OWsgIfQpP7c
James Kalm visits the exhibition Stanley Whitney: Left to Right at Team Gallery, New York, on view through April 28, 2012.
Kalm notes that Whitney's "approach to color and rhythm are akin to the spontaneous riffs of great jazz solos. With this latest exhibition, Stanley shows three major paintings that show his ability to extend his vision in scale, as well as a group of intimate studies that feature luscious color combinations and deft paint handling."
Link to Post:
http://youtu.be/W4_bVYeVp_I
James Kalm tours the exhibition Reverie @ Zürcher Studio, New York, curated by Stephen Westfall.
Kalm notes that this is "a prime group of painters dealing with the contemporary challenges of formalist abstraction. This walking tour includes views of works by: Andrea Belag, Shirley Jaffe, Alix Le Méléder, Sylvan Lionni, Julia Rommel, Patricia Treib, Stephen Westfall, Stanley Whitney."
Link to Post:
http://joannemattera.blogspot.com/2010/02/color-forms-part-1.html
