Searching for Jay DeFeo (Again)
Sarah Cowan reviews the exhibition Jay DeFeo at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, on view through June 7, 2014. Cowan writes that it is important that the show "homes in on [DeFeo's] post-'Rose' output until her death in 1989… DeFeo's reputation is too closely linked to the overly dramatic narrative of The Rose, she writes: […]
Peter Shear: Surface Readings
Brian Fee reviews the exhibition Peter Shear: Casting at Big Medium, Austin, on view through June 14, 2014. Fee writes that: "Gesture and scale resound in [the show], though the latter is deceptive when viewing only promotional materials like a reproduced Hold. This mottled pink-pastel composition, with a few graphic symbols (teal broken line, reddish […]
Matisse: The Urge to Strangle
T.J. Clark reflects on the exhibition Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs at Tate Modern, on view through September 7, 2014. Clark writes: "Painting versus decoration… Painting, in Matisse’s case, had always equalled Nature. Certainly confronting Nature – passing it under his fingers – had proved to be delight as much as interrogation: a rustling and smoothing […]
Pat Steir: For Philadelphia
Samantha Dylan Mitchell reviews the exhibition Pat Steir: For Philadelphia at Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, on view through June 21, 2014. Mitchell writes: "Each canvas maintains two distinct zones of color that take on a binary relationship. Light to dark, reflective to flat, they seem to turn on and off as your eye moves from one […]
Stuart Elster @ Junior Projects
Drew Lowenstein reviews the exhibition Stuart Elster: Cinderella Liberty at Junior Projects, New York, on view through June 1, 2014. Lowenstein writes: "The WWI Dazzle Camouflage project sought to reorder the visual composition of the boats by actually painting abstract shapes onto the boats’ outer surfaces. In his paintings, Elster inversely constructs boatness from the […]
For the Love of Gene Davis
Noreen Kress reviews the exhibition Polly Apfelbaum + Dan Cole: For the Love of Gene Davis at Temple Contemporary, Philadelphia, on view through July 11, 2014. Kress writes that the "two-person show [is] grounded in the work of American painter Gene Davis, who in 1972 created 'Franklin’s Footpath,' a 414-foot-long striped painting on the Ben […]
Perle Fine & Lisa Nankivil
Chris Miller reviews two concurrent shows at Thomas McCormick Gallery, Chicago: Perle Fine: Wide to the Wind and Lisa Nankivil: Metes and Bounds (both on view through June 14). Miller writes that Fine "was influenced by one artist after another, picking up whatever innovation fascinated her, from geo-form to bio-form, from tight to loose, from […]
Lucio Fontana: Proto-Technologism
Joseph Nechvatal reviews Lucio Fontana: Rétrospective at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, on view through August 24, 2014. Nechvatal writes: "With Fontana, painting may be made to represent the totality of the virtual span. Indeed Fontana’s theoretically-based penetrated paintings take a huge step in the direction of escaping the limits of […]
Lari Pittman @ Regen Projects
David Pagel reflects on the recent exhibition Lari Pittman: From a Late Western Impaerium at Regen Projects, Los Angeles. Pagel writes: "The intoxicating mélange of phantasmagorical apparitions and penetrating realism in [the show] is both majestic and matter-of-fact. It gives visitors a kick that sometimes seems to be the visual equivalent of hot flashes-unbidden, unwelcome, […]
John Cage and the Northwest School
Jennie Waldow blogs about the influence of the Northwest School painters Mark Tobey and Morris Graves on composer John Cage on the occasion of the exhibition There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage’s 4’33″ at MoMA, New York, on view through June 22, 2014. Waldow writes: "Cage, who met Tobey when the older man […]
Clint Jukkala @ BravinLee
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Clint Jukkala: Cosmic Trigger at BravinLee Programs, New York, on view through June 7, 2014. Butler writes that in his new work, Jukkala "[fuses] architecture, landscape, portraiture, and still life into one alien but still anthropomorphic form. In Jukkala's sharp imagination, the low-tech pay-per-view binoculars bolted onto railings at […]
Elizabeth Neel: Interview
MK Palomar interviews painter Elizabeth Neel on the occasion of her exhibition The People, The Park, The Ornament at Pilar Corrias Gallery, London, on view through June 20, 2014. Neel comments: "I like it when a painting has several different kinds of associations for me, and I know that when people look at it and it […]
Veronese: Majesty, Vehemence, Splendor
Andrew Butterfield considers Paolo Veronese's The Family of Darius before Alexander (1565–1567) on view in the exhibition Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice at the National Gallery, London, on view through June 15, 2014. Butterfield writes: "In painting, more than any other artist, Veronese knew how to glorify his patrons’ wealth, status, and erudition. The confident […]
Beauty Fierce as Stars
John Seed interviews co-curators Karen Zullo Sherr and Sue Steel about the exhibition Beauty Fierce as Stars, Groundbreaking Women Painters 1950s and Beyond at Mythos Fine Art and Artifacts at Firehouse North, Berkeley, CA, on view through June 21, 2014. Seed writes that the exhibition features "works of women painters who were active in the […]
Quita Brodhead: Bold Strokes
Deborah Krieger reviews the exhibition Quita Brodhead: Bold Strokes at the Woodmere Art Museum, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, on view through June 1, 2014. Krieger writes that the show "shines a welcome light on a painter who displayed a level of ingenuity and skill in a range of styles, one who strangely has little name recognition […]
Painting in Chelsea: May
Paul Behnke photo blogs visits to several current exhibitions in Chelsea including: Jay DeFeo at Mitchell-Innes & Nash (through June 7), Joel Shapiro: Works on Paper 2011-2013 at Pace Gallery (through June 28), Joan Mitchell: The Black Drawings and Related Works at Lennon, Weinberg, Inc (through June 28), Joan Mitchell: Trees at Cheim & Read […]
Parmigianino’s Schiava Turca
Sadie Stein considers the mysterious subject of Parmigianino's painting Schiava Turca (c. 1531–34), on view at The Frick Collection, New York through July 20, 2014. Stein writes: "The painting, a 1530s Mannerist masterpiece by Parmigianino, is considered an icon of the artist’s hometown, but no one is sure of the sitter’s identity. Was it a […]
Nicole Eisenman: 21st Century Expressionism
Stephen Knudsen reflects on the paintings of Nicole Eisenman who recently won the Carnegie Prize at the 2013 Carnegie International, Pittsburgh. Knudsen writes: "Eisenman’s buffoonery, irony and satire rises above empty jokes… [her] work is respectful to its early 20th-century roots by not making formal aspects of painting into a joke. She mixes in 1920’s formal […]
Geometry & Abstraction @ Frieze
Sharon Butler photo blogs paintings on view at the recent Frieze Art Fair in New York. Butler's selection of images includes works by Mary Heilmann, Norbert Prangenberg, Sergej Jensen, Richard Aldrich, Michael Krebber, Jo Baer, Monika Baer, Rebecca Morris, Anne Neukamp, Suzanne McClelland, Jutta Koethers, Michael Venezia, Rita Ackermann, Hans Lannér, and Louise Fishman.
Joyce Robins: Interview
Phong Bui interviews painter Joyce Robbins about her work on the occasion of her exhibition Paint and Clay at THEODORE:Art, Bushwick, Brooklyn, on view through June 22, 2014. Discussing her painting process Robbins comments: "I begin with some random marks, which in the first layer can be pretty banal, and then I would slowly add […]