Leah Triplett reviews Amy Sillman: one lump or two at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, on view through January 5, 2014.

Triplett writes that "Sillman’s work is rooted in the 'triumph of American painting,' witnessed mid-century with the height of abstract expressionism, and cultivated in an environment of painterly dissent that characterized the 20th century’s latter half. As curator Helen Molesworth, who organized the exhibition, contends… painting today is understood in terms of failure or ambivalence, affectation and power, and medium-specificity. Sillman’s work courts these contemporary discussions while also challenging ab-ex’s heroic ideals of form and expression. In her paintings, but also in her drawings, cartoons and prints, Sillman courts the reality of relationships via a multiplicity of human emotions."