Zachary Keeting on Cham Hendon
Zachary Keeting muses on the painting Mountain Chalet (2003) by Cham Hendon. Keeting writes: "I’m not gonna belabour the point, but I do need to say that this jpeg, a fine jpeg, doesn’t even come close to capturing the hallucinogenic hum of his painting. The actual piece trembles with a thousand tiny lights. It is […]
Emil Nolde: Watercolors
Piri Halasz reviews the exhibition Emil Nolde: Expressions in Watercolor at Van Doren Waxter Gallery, New York, on view through February 28, 2014. Halasz writes that in Nolde's painting Phantasie (Drei Köpfe): "Everything is very definitively outlined. This is the only painting in the show whose label concedes it was made with graphite and ink […]
Dozier Bell: Drawings
Carl Belz writes about the drawings of Dozier Bell. Belz notes that "Bell’s drawings–they’re all charcoal on mylar–are noticeably and resolutely small, on average between three and five inches on a side, small enough to hold in the palm of your hand, like a postcard, or a cell phone, or an iPod, or, even when […]
Grand Gestures
Three artists exhibiting side-by-side at the Painting Center are presenting refreshingly straightforward abstractions.
Molly Zuckerman-Hartung @ Corbett vs. Dempsey
Kelly Reaves reviews the exhibition Molly Zuckerman-Hartung: Violet Fogs Azure Snot at Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago, on view through March 15, 2014. Reaves writes "Zuckerman-Hartung’s paintings are baffling. They’re not simply pretty messes, as so many gestural abstract paintings are these days. In some ways they’re like spilt milk or grass stains. They whisper, stretch, […]
Wade Guyton @ Petzel
Brian Dupont reviews an exhibition of new work by Wade Guyton at Petzel Gallery, New York, on view through February 22, 2014. Dupont writes that all of Guyton's paintings "function as wry comments on their own making, existing both as paintings and 'paintings'; the level of quotation and reserve would seem to preclude Guyton from […]
The Casualist Tendency
Sharon Butler expands on her influential 2011 Brooklyn Rail essay The New Casualists. Butler writes: "The Casualist impulse has yielded compositionally awkward work that may seem humble and self-deprecating, and may employ 'hobbyist' pre-fab materials like pre-stretched canvases and canvas board. Though often small in scale, the work might spill into three dimensions because the […]
Julije Knifer @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash
Caleb De Jong reviews an exhibition of works by Julije Knifer at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, on view through March 15, 2014. De Jong writes: "Beginning in the early 1960s Knifer reduced his compositions to a form he termed the ‘meander’, which were maze like forms made with a restrictive palette of black and […]
Provisional Painting: Three Hypotheses
Alan Pocaro offers an indictment of provisional painting. Pocaro writes: "What we are witnessing with the ascendancy of provisional or DIY abstraction is simply the widespread institutionalization of the 'poseur' mentality as a viable art-making strategy. It’s a mindset that values the idea of being a painter and the sociological approach adopted in the studio […]
Anne Harris on Dieric Bouts
Anne Harris reflects on the painting Mater Dolorosa from the Workshop of Dieric Bouts, c. 1410–1475. Harris writes: "Let’s talk tension. Contradiction. The stress created when opposites push and pull. This painting is compressed, squeezed between its scuffed gold backdrop and the picture plane, pressurized. She swells forward but is embedded in her background, held […]
Barbara Takenaga: Studio Visit
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit the studio of painter Barbara Takenaga. In 2012, Carol Diehl wrote: "Takenaga’s work has been described as psychedelic, but that implies a loss of control, where these paintings are the result of acute attention. While they no doubt owe much to the precedents of Op art and Pattern and […]
Josephine Halvorson: Forensic Observer
John Yau reviews the exhibition Josephine Halvorson: Facings at Sikkema Jenkins & Co, New York, on view through March 1, 2014. Yau writes: "It is as if Halvorson has equated painting with forensic pathology, which is how she circumvents any potential for nostalgia. This is not to say that she is clinical in her examination […]
Philip Pearlstein: Just the Facts
Dennis Kardon reviews the exhibition Philip Pearlstein: Just the Facts: 50 Years of Looking and Drawing and Painting, curated by Robert Storr, at the New York Studio School, on view through February 22, 2014. Kardon writes: "Any painted representation is a dramatically edited one. Given that even the simplest setting contains an infinite amount of […]
Zurbarán in Brussels
Julie Beckers reviews the exhibition Zurbarán: Master of Spain’s Golden Age at BOZAR, The Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, on view through May 25, 2014. Beckers writes: "Zurbarán, with an apparently tender – yet at times haunting – brushstroke, easily conveys his personal devotion in scenes from the lives of saints, martyrs and monks, often […]
Ryan Cobourn: Interview
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Ryan Cobourn about his work. Cobourn's exhibition I've Been Wrong Before is currently on view Bryant Street Gallery in Palo Alto, CA (through February 28) and his work was recently on view at Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York. Cobourn comments: "Cézanne was about fitting things in together. I’m interested in that […]
Jasper Johns: Regrets
Julie L Belcove profiles painter Jasper Johns on the occasion of the upcoming exhibition Jasper Johns: Regrets at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, on view beginning March 15, 2014. The show will feature John's newest paintings "paintings and works on paper, predominantly in greys and blacks, all riffing on the same image of […]
Kim Trowbridge: Interview
Jake Uitti interviews painter Kim Trowbridge about her work. Trowbridge recalls that in her recent show Story Tell Her at Blindfold Gallery, Seattle she "created a narrative installation that invited the viewer into my process of building a visual language. This show was massively important to me because it articulated my interest in narrative and my […]
Simon Dinnerstein’s Irregular Grid
Daniel Maidman blogs about Simon Dinnerstein's painting The Fulbright Triptych, on view at the German Consulate, New York through March 31, 2014. Maidman writes: "Apart from its structural delights, the grid has a human dimension which appeals to me. It speaks of the yearning for completeness. He who begins a grid wishes to say everything […]
Conversation with Alfredo Gisholt
Gisholt paints timeless, poetic worlds where the everyday and the grand tradition of painting merge.
Eric Fischl: Interview
Julie L. Belcove profiles painter Erich Fischl about his work on the occasion of the exhibition Eric Fischl: Friends, Lovers and other Constellations at the Albertina, Vienna, on view through May 18, 2014. In the show, Belcove reports, "there are plenty of nudes and high-tension scenes among the nearly 90 works. For Fischl, the body […]