Balthus’ Timeless Mysticism
Jed Perl reviews the exhibition Balthus: Cats and Girls – Paintings and Provocations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view through January 12, 2014. Perl writes: "Balthus’s fascination with the life around him had nothing to do with documenting everyday experiences and everything to do with uncovering the hidden meanings of those […]
Rue Blomet, Wizards with Paint & Olitski
Piri Halasz reviews three current painting exhibitions in New York: Surrealism and the rue Blomet at Eykyn MacLean (through December 13), Roy Lerner, Peter G. Ray: Wizards with Paint at Sideshow Gallery (through December 15), and Jules Olitski On An Intimate Scale… and Friends at Freedman Art (through January 31, 2014). Writing about the Surrealism show, […]
Painting in Chelsea
Paul Behnke photo blogs several painting shows currently and recently on view in Chelsea including: Leon Kossoff: London Landscapes at Mitchell-Innes & Nash (through December 21), Larry Poons: Geometry + Dots 1957 – 1965 at Loretta Howard Gallery (through December 14), Disposition: Gregory Hayes & Anne Russinof at Blank Space (through January 3, 2014), Sean […]
Matt Phillips: Studio Visit
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting visit the studio of painter Matt Phillips. Asked about the interaction between the image and support edge, Phillips comments: "I like that the image itself is a form… as you start to make the painting, you're given the rectangle, but that it doesn't necessarily have to live withing that arbitrary […]
Léger: Modern Art & the Metropolis
Mario Naves reviews the exhibition Léger, Modern Art and the Metropolis at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on view through January 5, 2014. Naves writes: "World War One didn’t alter Léger’s take on the machine. If anything, it emboldened a sensibility already entranced by the machine’s regularity, precision, and power. Admittedly, a revived humanism did […]
Hantaï, Hartung, Soulages & Tàpies
John Bunker reviews the exhibition Hantaï, Hartung, Soulages and Tàpies at Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, on view through January 18, 2014. Bunker writes: "…how did these four artists coming to prominence in Europe during the 50s develop ideas about abstraction on their own terms? That’s a complex question, but what comes to the fore in this […]
Esteban Vicente & the Art of Collage
Tim Keane reviews the exhibition Esteban Vicente: The Art of Interruption at the Asheville Art Museum, North Carolina, on view through through January 12, 2014. Keane writes that the show "focuses on how Vicente translates modernist designs for painting into the diction of collage. Braque and Matisse loom as his chief influences. Like those two […]
Hayal Pozanti @ Susanne Vielmetter
David Pagel reviews the exhibition of paintings by Hayal Pozanti at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, on view through December 21, 2013. Pagel writes that Pozanti's paintings "resemble the impossible offspring of doodles and diagrammatic drawings of machine parts. The combination is felicitous. It links the no-nonsense functionalism of precisely designed prototypes to the whimsy […]
Matthew Blackwell: Picklelilly
David Brody reviews the exhibition Matthew Blackwell: Picklelilly at Edward Thorp Gallery, New York, on view through November 30, 2013. Brody writes: "As with James Ensor’s or Max Beckmann’s demented crowd scenes, Blackwell’s figures are both fantastic projections of psychic roles and notes on everyday weirdness. The sturdy hitchhiker in Here?, (2011) shoulders a tangled […]
Painting Beyond Belief
Patrick Neal reports on a conversation among Jordan Kantor, Amy Sillman, and Peter Doig about contemporary painting and the art of Chagall, on the occasion of the exhibition Marc Chagall: Love, War and Exile at The Jewish Museum, New York, on view through February 2, 2014. Neal writes that "Doig and Sillman both admitted that […]
Tiepolo & the Abstract Spin
Robert Linsley considers the spatial possibilities that eighteenth century ceiling painting might offer contemporary abstract painting. Linsley writes that "Tiepolo is a conduit back to the rich history of ceiling painting, which turns out to be more important for abstraction than we might expect… Pictorial problems of the eighteenth century become pictorial possibilities of the […]
Ryan McLaughlin: Painting is Flat
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Ryan McLaughlin: Raisins at Laurel Gitlen, New York, on view through December 22, 2013. Butler writes: "Hovering between still life and abstraction, the charming yet dour small-scale paintings [by McLaughlin at the 2012 Frieze Art Fair, NY] featured a minimal, greyed-down palette and shallow space. In 'Raisins,' his solo […]
Susan Bee: Interview
Clare Britt interviews painter Susan Bee, whose work was recently on view in the exhibition The Sacred and Profane Love Machine at Ortega y Gasset Projects, Ridgewood, Queens. Bee writes: "I am inspired by folk art and indeed the interactions between the individuals in the paintings are influenced by my love of color and expressive painting. […]
Patricia Treib @ Wallspace
Photo blog of an exhibition of paintings by Patricia Treib at Wallspace, New York, on view through December 21, 2013. The gallery press release notes that: "Treib’s true subject is the process of looking, through which she discovers new relationships while dismantling what is merely recognizable. Treib focuses on the space between forms, making in-betweenness […]
Shelley Reed: In Dubious Battle
Nadiah Fellah reviews the recent exhibition Shelley Reed: In Dubious Battle at Danese Corey Gallery, New York. Fellah writes: "Reed’s mural-sized paintings evoke the work of realist French or Dutch paintings from a bygone era—although at a slight removal given their monochromatic palettes… By challenging the ideas of originality, Reed prompts viewers to question what […]
Richard Timperio: Color Me Gone
James Kalm visits the exhibition Richard Timperio: Color Me Gone at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, Brooklyn, on view through December 22, 2013. Kalm notes that "As a fan of 'Car Culture,' and classic Rock-n-Roll, Timperio's paintings have all the punch of a top fuel dragster, or the amplified urgency of a three cord riff. Using watered-down […]
Hilma Af Klint: ‘Interview’
Matthew Collings conducts a fictional “interview” with painter Hilma Af Klint. Colling’s Af Klint notes: “if you’re a painter you spend a lot of time getting things right, getting forms to be efficient so that whatever you’re hoping to get across can have a chance of being coherent, of actually communicating to someone. You’re basically […]
Degas, Renoir & Poetic Pastels
Emil Robinson reviews the exhibition Degas, Renoir, and Poetic Pastels at the Cincinnati Art Museum, on view through January 19, 2014. Robinson writes that "the real treasures in the show come from the hand of Degas. Here we see five fine works, all depicting the ballet. These pieces appear both ancient and startlingly modern: ancient […]
Benjamin Degen: Shadow, Ripple & Reflection
Michael Bilsborough reviews the exhibition Benjamin Degen: Shadow, Ripple and Reflection at Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, on view through December 7, 2013. Bilsborough writes that "Degen gives us new paintings of figures that look life-size, built from impasto techniques that seem to weave fibers of pure color, while using hue and space to deliver […]
Peter Young: Linear Weave (Vertical Fold)
John Yau reviews the exhibition Peter Young: Linear Weave (Vertical Fold) Paintings: 1980–1983 at Algus Greenspon, New York, on view through December 21, 2013. Yau writes that "the 'Linear Weave (Vertical Fold)' paintings are not in the least pictorial. They are dense, non-hierarchical, informational fields made up of a simple abstract language, whose geometric combinations […]