Exhibitions
R.H. Quaytman: Interview
Apollo Magazine
Lidija Haas interviews artist R.H. Quaytman whose exhibition An Evening, Chapter 32 is on view at the Secession, Vienna through January 21, 2018. Haas writes: “[Quaytman] has never once considered abandoning painting, ‘because I think it’s really the best problem in art. The plane, the picture, is the best, deepest problem.’ Photographs on the other […]
Frances Barth @ Silas Van Morisse
artcritical
David Brody reviews Frances Barth: New Paintings, 2011-2017 at Silas Van Morisse Gallery, Bushwick, Brooklyn, on view through December 17, 2017. Brody begins: “Frances Barth’s new paintings combine calm planes of beautiful color with graphic details that suggest landscape, while also subverting easy spatial readings. As with Thomas Nozkowski’s cryptic modes of abstraction, Barth’s uncertain […]
Cary Smith: Interview
Sound & Vision Podcast
Brian Alfred talks to painter Cary Smith at Smith’s recent exhibition New Paintings and Drawings at Fredricks & Freiser, New York.
Matisse-Bonnard @ the Staedal Museum
AbCrit
Richard Ward reviews Matisse-Bonnard: Long Live Painting at the Staedal Museum Frankfurt, on view through January 14, 2018. Ward notes that the “difference of approach [of the two artists] is visible throughout the exhibition and manifests itself in various ways: Matisse’s primary creation is pictorial space. Even a simple, almost sketch-like painting, such as the amazing ‘Open […]
Lauren Luloff: Drawing (with bleach) from life
Two Coats of Paint
Eileen Jeng Lynch reviews the recent exhibition Lauren Luloff: The Evergreens at Ceysson & Bénétière, New York. Lynch writes: “The title of the show, The Evergreens, derives its name from the eponymous nineteenth-century cemetery in the artist’s Brooklyn neighborhood. Luloff used bleach to paint flora – including sunflowers, hollyhocks, hydrangeas, and blue spruces – in […]
Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting
Aeqai
Karen S. Chambers reviews Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., on view through Jan. 21, 2018. Chambers writes: “The National Gallery of Art … has assembled what may be the definitive exhibition of 17th-century Dutch high-life genre painting, which focuses on the daily […]
Graham Nickson: Light and Geometry
Hyperallergic
Karen Wilkin reviews Graham Nickson: Light and Geometry at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, on view through December 22, 2018. Wilkin writes: “The canvases and watercolors [Nickson] has produced over the years — of flamboyant sunrises and feverish sunsets — address themes that most committed modernists would either scorn or find too frightening to tackle. […]
Impressionists in London @ Tate Britain
Studio International
Francesca Wade reviews Impressionists in London at Tate Britain, on view through May 7, 2018. Wade writes: “In 1904, 37 of [Claude Monet’s] pictures – splendidly evocative hazes of red and blue – were shown in Paris in an exhibition called Views of the Thames. Eight of these works form the centrepiece of this Tate exhibition, […]
Tom McGlynn: Liberating Geometric Shapes
Two Coats of Paint
Sharon Butler reviews Tom McGlynn: Station / Decal / Survey at Rick Wester Fine Arts, New York, on view through December 23, 2017. Butler writes: “The shapes [in McGlynn’s paintings] aren’t symbolic, and they don’t conjure a discrete narrative about internal relationships. But they do provide some evidence of this artist’s specific intention and process. His very […]
Dana Schutz: Building the Boat While Painting
The Nation
Barry Schwabsky reviews an exhibition of works by Dana Schutz at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and subsequently reflects on Schutz’s controversial painting of Emmett Till shown in the recent Whitney Biennial. Schwabsky observes: “It’s in the gap between what can be imagined and what can be represented that art’s capacity for surprise is […]
Murillo: The Self-Portraits @ the Frick
Apollo Magazine
Louise Nicholson reviews Murillo: The Self-Portraits at the Frick Collection, New York, on view through February 4, 2018. Nicholson writes: “The Frick self-portrait … dominates one room. Viewers must use their imaginations to enliven the now dismal background colour: Murillo’s intended airy blue sky is gone due to the degradation of the smalt pigment he […]
Ying Li @ Gross McCleaf Gallery
Broad Street Review
Lev Feigin reviews Ying Li: Sojourn at Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, on view through November 25, 2017. Feigin writes that Li’s paintings “evoke pictorial spaces: vistas on a Swiss lake; autumn mountains near Telluride, Colorado; docked boats on the Maine coast. But come closer and you enter the ridged, luminous labyrinths of her pigments projected over […]
Syd Solomon @ Berry Campbell
Whitehot Magazine
Jonathan Goodman reviews a recent exhibition of works by Syd Solomon at Berry Campbell, New York. Goodman writes that Solomon “opens up a genuine understanding of the abstract-expressionist movement—we see the art and not the painter overwhelming the art. The vertical work called Summer Spell (1985), with its skeins and wisps of color—white, yellow, blur, […]
Wayne Thiebaud @ Allan Stone Projects
Hamptons Art Hub
Sally Grant reviews Wayne Thiebaud: Land Survey at Allan Stone Projects, New York, on view through December 23, 2017. Grant writes: “Thiebaud has frequently revisited certain motifs over the course of his long career and has mastered their painterly enticement. Whether the subject is a cake or a cloud, the artist’s consummate rendering seduces the […]
Arshile Gorky Landscapes @ Hauser & Wirth
Hyperallergic
Thomas Micchelli reviews Ardent Nature: Arshile Gorky Landscapes, 1943–47 at Hauser & Wirth, New York, on view through December 23, 2017. Micchelli observes: “The drawings in this show are breathtaking in their variety and intensity. Motifs glide in and out; graphite lines trace the contours of unknown plants and body parts, accented by strokes of green, […]
Emily Berger: Interview
Two Coats of Paint
Sharon Butler interviews painter Emily Berger on the occasion of the recent exhibition Emily Berger: Rhythm and Light at Walter Wickiser, New York, and Emily Berger: New Paintings at Norte Maar, Brooklyn (through November 19). Berger comments: “From my earliest complete and semi-presentable paintings I’ve been a grid painter. I like the structure and the […]
Ad Reinhardt: The Threshold of Perception
artcritical
Justin Sterling reviews the recent exhibition Ad Reinhardt: Blue Paintings at David Zwirner Gallery. Sterling writes: “To see Ad Reinhardt’s paintings one must slow down the pace of everyday life. In the Blue Paintings … dating for the most part from 1950 to 1953, so much medium has been removed from the paint as to […]
Small Paintings from the Taft Collection
Aeqai
Jonathan Kamholtz reviews the recent exhibition Small Paintings from the Taft Collection at the Taft Museum of Art. Kamholtz writes: “As the exhibition notes suggest, there are all sorts of reasons for paintings being small. Some were originally devotional objects where it might matter that you can form an intimate attachment to an image. Some are […]
Cary Smith @ Fredricks & Freiser
James Kalm Report
James Kalm visits Cary Smith: New Paintings and Drawings at Fredricks & Freiser, New York, on view through November 18, 2017. Kalm notes: “For decades now, Cary Smith has maintained an austere compositional approach to abstraction, developing themes that he expounds on as if they were Euclidian axioms. Though this might sound dry and overly […]
Marcia Marcus @ Eric Firestone Gallery
Hyperallergic
John Yau reviews Marcia Marcus, Role Play: Paintings 1958 – 1973 at Eric Firestone Gallery, New York, on view through December 2, 2017. Yau writes: “Between 1958 and ’73, the period covered by the exhibition, Marcus achieved something as singular and powerful as any of her more celebrated male counterparts, including Alex Katz and Philip […]