Eric Zimmerman visits the Blinky Palermo Retrospective now on view at Dia:Beacon and CSS Bard on view through October 31, 2011.  Referring to Palermo's Graue Schiebe (1970) Zimmerman notes "The painting's surface is as erratic as its shape, which draws you close and then promptly insists you back up again, a process that can continue for as long as your attention allows. These sorts of perceptual games are abstraction's bread and butter. In a sense they speak directly to our vision and physical presence within a space. They let our eyes guide our bodies in seeking out clues, nuance, and new ways of seeing and thinking about form, while keenly subverting the relationship between subject and object. Such acts, Palermo’s being a particularly salient example, subtly ground the viewer in the gallery space through active engagement, both physical and metaphorical."