Reviews
Eleanor Ray: The power of the small
Two Coats of Paint
Michael Brennan reviews paintings by Eleanor Ray at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York. “[Ray’s] paintings are small, mostly under ten inches in their longest dimension. They defiantly reside in keyhole territory, but she has a keen sense of scale. The art world routinely misuses this term to signify anything large, when in fact it concerns […]
Joanna Pousette-Dart: Centering
Brooklyn Rail
Lilly Wei reviews Joanna Pousette-Dart: Centering at Lisson Gallery, New York. Wei observes: “Schooled in a modernist aesthetic, Pousette-Dart soon veered away from non-objective formalism to a more personalized, independent aesthetic. Abstractions sourced in landscapes and painted on multi-paneled shaped canvases have been her calling card since the early 1990s. They are also marvelously quirky—no […]
Kim Uchiyama at Helm Contemporary
The New Criterion
Dana Gordon reviews Kim Uchiyama: Loggia at Helm Contemporary, New York. Gordon observes: “Sicily brings to mind bright sunlight and thus strong color. At midday, when extended shadows disappear, the colors of the ground, objects, and sky can be close in value—there isn’t a lot of contrast in brightness among colors. This kind of light […]
Bosiljka Raditsa and Elizabeth Yamin
Brooklyn Rail
Jonathan Goodman reviews Accommodating the Object: Bosiljka Raditsa and Elizabeth Yamin at the Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation, New York. Goodman writes that both artists, “in distinguished fashion, look to an organic abstraction that elaborates on the ab-ex style that immediately preceded them, at the same time pulling away from the past and working […]
Franklin Einspruch: Tangibilia
Tussle
William Corwin reviews Tangibilia, an exhibition of paintings by Franklin Einspruch at THERE Gallery, New York. Corwin asserts: “The strongest, and most enigmatic painting in Tagibilia is Private Life. A pair of lovers wrestle in bed, their bodies tangled in a series of angles and stacks… Wiggly glove-like comic strip hands emerge at different points […]
Maison de Masson
The New Criterion
David Platzer reviews the exhibition André Masson: There is No Finished World at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, France. Platzer’s review walks the reader through the phases of Masson’s career – cubism, surrealism, the influence of eroticism (via de Sade), and mythology – presented in this retrospective.
Dana Saulnier: Nearly Distant
Looking Glass
Peter Malone reviews Dana Saulnier: Nearly Distant at First Street Gallery, New York. Malone writes: “Unlike many committed abstract painters today who flirt with spatial depth and the occasional image, yet hold fast to the security of the modernist surface, Saulnier shows no discomfort with illusionary space, or modeling, or receding planes, or atmospheric depth, […]
Gustav Klimt Landscapes
Brooklyn Rail
David Carrier reviews Klimt Landscapes at the Neue Galerie, New York. Carrier points out the uniqueness of these pictures observing that “while Impressionism was shown in Klimt’s Vienna, he seemed to have worked in a parallel Austrian universe. His pointillism owes more to the sixth-century Christian mosaics at Ravenna than to Georges Seurat. … perhaps […]
Willem de Kooning and Italy
The Art Newspaper
David Anfam reviews Willem de Kooning L’Italia at the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice. Noting that a “mix of scholarly mismatch versus magnificent artworks lingers throughout the whole display,” Anfam further observes: “near the start a trio of “abstract parkway landscapes” hang together for the first time: how do Bolton Landing (1957), Detour (1958) and Brown Derby […]
Joan Thorne: An Odyssey of Color
Two Coats of Paint
Vittorio Colaizzi reviews Joan Thorne, An Odyssey of Color at David Richard Gallery, New York. In Orango, a row of concentric green arcs – complicated by her signature trembling – frames a riotous zone of magenta, cobalt, and powdery violet. Only after some deciphering does the sequence and nature of layers become apparent, as the […]
Robert Ryman: The Act of Looking
Whitehot Magazine
Joseph Nechvatal reviews Robert Ryman: The Act of Looking at the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris. Nechvatal observes: “The piece with oil on aluminum panel and four bolts called Accord (1985) I think is the best in the show, because the rolled or sprayed ‘pure’ opticality of the white surface (leitmotif of the Ryman style) on […]
Reeve Schley: By the River
Tussle
William Corwin reviews a recent exhibition of works by Reeve Schley at Geary, New York. Corwin begins: “In the endless litany of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), we often miss out on one of the most important things, hearing, or seeing a novel interpretation of the world through a foreign set of eyes. Ninety-nine percent […]
Notes and Reflections on Rothko in Paris
IdeelArt
Dana Gordon reflects on a recent visit to the Mark Rothko retrospective at The Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Gordon observes that the 1950s paintings “are [Rotho’s] best. They have the most full expression of color possible. I found them easy to look at, drawing me to them, and they made me want to look […]
Chaïm Soutine at K20
Spike Art Magazine
Hans-Jürgen Hafner reviews Chaïm Soutine, Against the Current at K20, Düsseldorf. Hafner’s review highlights the uniquely visual nature of experiencing a Soutine painting. “Encountering a work by Soutine,” Hafner writes, “you ‘see’ what you ‘get’ exactly by looking at it … a meager, lifeless chicken, hanging slightly aslant against some dark background, an uncanny hole […]
Emily Mason: Tone Control
The New Yorker
Jackson Arn reviews Emily Mason: The Thunder Hurried Slow at Miles McEnery Gallery, New York. Arn observes: “Working your way from the left to the right side of the small, square ‘Like Some Old Fashioned Miracle’ (1972-74), you first find bright yellow and blue cheek to cheek with hunter green, simple as two plus three […]
Matisse and Derain: A study in contrasts
The New Criterion
James Panero reviews Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. After setting the stage with a discussion of Michel Eugène Chevreul’s theory of contrasting color and its influence on impressionist and post-impressionist painting, Panero traces the story of Matisse and Derain working together in […]
Larry Groff at Prince Street Gallery
In Larry Groff’s recent paintings, visions of contemporary reality give way to surprising optimism.
James Brooks reconsidered
Two Coats of Paint
Laurie Fendrich reviews James Brooks: A Painting is a Real Thing, curated by Dr. Klaus Ottmann on view at The Parrish Art Museum from August 6–October 15, 2023. Fendrich writes: “On the rare occasions I’ve encountered Brooks’s paintings, I’ve paid them scant attention. Like many, I have walked on by, presumptively ranking him well below […]
Gwen John at Pallant House
London Review of Books
Alice Spawls reviews Gwen John: Art and Life in Paris and London at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. Spawls observes that: “The pictures themselves are not large or flamboyant, and some are almost austere. But they seem to vibrate. There are suggestions of movement in the cloth, in the stippling of paint (which sometimes looks like […]
Ed Clark: The Big Sweep
Brooklyn Rail
Charles Moore reviews Ed Clark: The Big Sweep, on view at Hauser & Wirth, New York from September 7– October 21, 2023. Moore notes that “the exhibition, titled The Big Sweep, —named for the artist’s revolutionary use of the push broom as paintbrush—examines how Clark worked at the frontiers of abstract expressionism, experimenting with materiality […]