Rachael Macarthur @ Pluspace
Andy Parkinson blogs about the paintings of Rachael Macarthur on view in the group exhibition Meditations at Pluspace, Coventry, on view through July 7, 2013. Parkinson writes that Macarthur's paintings "could be experiments in form, the drawing looking like it came from the inside out, as if the shapes evolved from within the painting process […]
Juan Uslé: Gentle Tension of Abstraction
Carren Jao reviews Juan Uslé: Entre Dos Lunas at L.A. Louver, Los Angeles, on view through July 6, 2013. Jao writes: "The exhibition title translates to 'between two moons,' in homage to the painter’s experience gazing at two moons while standing on the Williamsburg Bridge, a structure itself straddling Manhattan and Brooklyn… In-betweenness is a […]
Karen Dow: Studio Visit
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit the studio of painter Karen Dow. Dow comments: "the objectivity of the image is important to me, drawing attention to the fact of it, as well as the illusion, riding the edge between fact and illusion… It's always been imprortant to me that the work be joyful and have […]
Martin Kippenberger: Sehr Gut
Karen Rester reviews the Martin Kippenberger retrospective at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art, on view through August 18, 2013. Rester writes that Kippenberger's "über-expansive oeuvre of paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, drawings, books, collages, poems, posters, stickers—which spans a mere 20 years and yet would fill the careers of several artists—will take several lifetimes […]
Diebenkorn in Berkeley
Tyler Green talks to Timothy Anglin Burgard, curator of the exhibition Richard Diebenkorn: The Berkeley Years, 1953-66 at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, on view from June 22 – September 29, 2013. Burgard comments that the merging of asbstraction and figuration "is one of [Diebenkorn's] great accomplishments… most beautifully in the Berkeley period, he […]
Robert Motherwell: Collage
Sam Cornish reviews the exhibition Robert Motherwell: Collage is on at Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, on view through July 27, 2013. Cornish writes: "Motherwell very self-consciously (in a couple of works too self-consciously for my taste) looks back to the papier collé Picasso and Braque first made a little over a century ago. Though it […]
Linda Francis, John O’Connor, Ken Weathersby
James Kalm visits the exhibition Linda Francis, John O'Connor, Ken Weathersby at Suite 217, Bushwick, Brooklyn, on view through July 15, 2013. Kalm notes that the three artists are "some of today's most 'obsessed' pattern followers and list makers." In the exhibition essay, Michele Alpern writes: "The exhibition that joins works by Linda Francis, John […]
David Ostrowski: Interview
Steven Cox interviews painter David Ostrowski about the work in his recent shows at Peres Projects, Berlin. Cox introduces the interview by writing: "Ostrowski’s approach to painting therefore involves a simultaneous abandoning and re-inventing of historical tropes; concurrently creating what are essentially process-based abstractions. The F paintings are not created to please or conform; they […]
Joanne Greenbaum: Interview
Jeremy Sigler interviews painter Joanne Greenbaum about her work and career. Responding to Sigler's comment about her work having a sense of rebelliousness, Greenbaum comments: "It is rebellious, and it’s also this stubbornness I have of sticking to painting, feeling like there’s still so much to do in the two dimensions—even though, as you see, […]
Thomas Berding: Interview
Christopher Lowrance interviews painter Thomas Berding on the occasion of the recent exhibition Thomas Berding: Makeshift Futures at The Painting Center, New York. Berding comments: "To recapture the studio process can be a bit like trying to retell a dream or untie a knot. That said, I often use elements like cardboard, color aid paper, […]
Michael Tompkins: Interview
Larry Groff interviews painter Michael Tompkins about his work and career. Groff introduces Tompkins work noting: "What is remarkable about these paintings isn’t just the amazing technical skills in achieving these monumental structures but in how he makes it seem like it’s all such great fun. There is musicality in how intervals of placement, color […]
Terrific Twosomes
Two recently opened downtown exhibits bring together artists with much in common, as well as contrasts that, when seen together, allow for deeper appreciation of their respective works.
The Old Becomes The New
Patrick Brennan reviews the recent exhibition The Old Becomes The New: New York Contemporary Native American Art Movement And The New York School at Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba, New York. Brennan writes: "There are lateral and reciprocal relations between the New York School and these contemporary Native artists. American artists of comparatively recent European origin, […]
Clyfford Still: Newly Revealed
Ken Carpenter considers three areas of the ongoing re-evaluation of the work of Clyfford Still: Still's relation to art history, which period of Still's work represents the pinnacle of his achievement, and new insights into the creative sources that underpin Still's oeuvre. Carpenter weighs in on this last question, noting that "The Clyfford Still Museum […]
Judith Simonian at Edward Thorp
Eliot Markell reviews the recent exhibition Judith Simonian: Recent Work at Edward Thorp Gallery, New York. Markell writes “This exhibit features compositions venturing into more ambitious territory including theatrical, and still life elements that combine less strictly representational schemes with a dream-like narrative. These paintings seem like a natural extension of what the artist has […]
Painting in Hudson/Chelsea: June
Elisabeth Condon photoblogs visits to current and recent painting shows in Hudson, NY and Chelsea including: Kylie Heidenheimer at Galerie Gris, Hudson, NY (through July 15), I Am The Magic Hand, curated by Josephine Halvorson at Sikkema Jenkins (through July 12), Alexi Worth: States at DC Moore, Philip Taaffe: Recent Work at Luhring Augustine, and […]
Nozkowski & Guston: At the Beginning of Seeing
John Yau finds a connection between a painting by Thomas Nozkowski and one by Philip Guston. Yau writes: "Both Nozkowski’s and Guston’s paintings reveal themselves slowly. Their visual impact is not as immediate as it is in similar works. It takes close looking to see the figure-ground interaction in Nozkowski painting and the gray leg […]
Paul Edwards: Obsessive Expressionist
Paul Behnke blogs about the paintings of Paul Edwards. Behnke writes: "Edwards' work is characterized by a unique, expressive depiction of the figure and an eye for detail, all locked within compositions that are violent and lyrical all at once. Generally, he employs a limited color palette that establishes mood while his obsessive drawing and […]
Ellen Altfest: Interview
Ridley Howard interviews painter Ellen Altfest about her work. I think I learned to be an artist as a still life painter and then applied that language to the figure. Maybe the body is more understandable when it is broken down into knowable pieces. I also like that the parts of the body become their […]
Julie Heffernan: Interview
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Julie Heffernan about her work and career. Heffernan comments: "I am looking for forms that can function both symbolically and with their own personality. I remember Peter Schjeldahl writing about the Victorian Fairy Painting exhibition at the Frick in 1999. He said the show signified to him the end of modernism, […]