Barnett Newman: Untethering Modernism
Mark Stone takes a close look at Barnett Newman's work and argues that contemporary painters should take Newman's achievement to heart. Stone writes that Newman "found an Abstraction that in the face of the Modern world would be seen as untenable, unrealized, unprecedented, and thus, totally unique. And in this painting one might still see […]
Julie Mehretu: Interview
Tyler Green talks to painter Julie Mehretu on the occasion of two simultaneous exhibitions, one at Marian Goodman Gallery, New York (thorugh June 22) and the other at White Cube, London (through July 7). Mehretu discusses "sonic suggestion" in her paintings. "I work listening to music," she says, "I'm very interested in how there's never […]
DeShawn Dumas: The World Isn’t a Monochrome
Mary Negro profiles artist DeShawn Dumas on the occasion of his exhibition Future Primitive at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, on view through June 22, 2013. Negro writes: "Dumas’s diamond-shaped abstract works present the viewer with lofty concepts rooted firmly in both historical materialism and art historical interests. The initial surface of his paintings is […]
Bernard Cohen at Flowers
Dan Coombs reviews Bernard Cohen: 80th Birthday Exhibition at Flowers Gallery, London, on view through June 22, 2013. Coombs writes: "There’s something ambitious about the way Cohen conflates so many modes of painting together, something impossible about the problems he sets for himself. There’s an overweening ambition to paint the whole world, to paint an […]
Elena Sisto: A Definition Growing Certain
Eleanor Ray reflects on the recent exhibition Between Silver Light and Orange Shadow: Paintings by Elena Sisto at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York. Ray writes: "After making images of young painters for several years, Sisto seems able in her newest work to remain conscious of the experience of the new painter, looking with fresh […]
William Scott @ The Hepworth Wakefield
Andy Parkinson reviews the exhibition William Scott at The Hepworth Wakefield, on view through September 29, 2013. Parkinson writes: "Paintings like White, Sand and Ochre, and Still Life with Orange Note, as well as one of Scott’s latest paintings Orange Segments, remind me of the way that ‘pure’ colours refer to the outside world even […]
Shirley Goldfarb @ Loretta Howard
Randee Silv reviews the exhibition Shirley Goldfarb: A Retrospective at Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, on view through June 8, 2013. Silv writes: "Evident in [Goldfarb's] large-scale canvases, White Painting (1962) and Pink Painting (1964), Goldfarb deliberately compressed her broad strokes into smaller gestural variations of rhythmic dialogues, inviting viewers to converse if they’d like. […]
Hearne Pardee: Everyday Light
Chris Daubert reviews the exhibition Hearne Pardee: Everyday Light at Alex Bult Gallery, Sacramento, CA, on view through June 1, 2013. Daubert begins: "The paintings from the mid-80s follow [Pardee's] travels around the United States, from Maine to New Mexico, where the landscape itself expands and the sky opens. They also show a shift in […]
Jon Imber’s Painterly Freedom
Jon Imber’s current paintings are born of a similar allegiance to the one standard every artist of quality must follow, freedom.
Mike Glier: Interview
Jonathan Beer interviews artist Mike Glier about his work and career. Glier comments: "Working in the studio got boring, so I started to paint out of doors in upstate NY. I’d get set up outside, choose a subject and then the wind would blow everything to the ground. Or the clouds would come in and […]
Jay DeFeo at the Whitney
A review of Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective at the Whitney Museum of Art, New York, on view through June 2, 2013. "The current retrospective… is not only about The Rose, though it is the heart of the installation… this show provides a broader view of the artist and demonstrates the range of DeFeo’s considerable oeuvre. Her […]
Mark Greenwold: Murdering the World
James Kalm visits the exhibition Mark Greenwold: Murdering the World, Paintings and Drawings 2007-2013 at Sperone Westwater, New York, on view though June 28, 2013. Kalm notes that "due to the excruciatingly labor intensive nature of the work, seeing these pictures is treat and an historical event. This show presents about six years of paintings and […]
Color & Romanticism on the LES
Elisabeth Condon photo blogs a studio visit with painter Kylie Heidenheimer and three Lower East Side exhibitions: Amanda Browder's painterly installations in Prism/Livin/Room at Allegra La Viola (through May 24), Don Voisine at McKenzie Fine Art (through June 9), and The Thrill of the Ideal, Richard Tuttle: The Reinhart Project at Pocket Utopia (through June […]
John Zurier: One Foot In The Sublime
Stephen Maine reviews the exhibition John Zurier: A spring a thousand years ago at Peter Blum Gallery, New York, on view through June 22 2013. Maine writes: "Particularity: some paintings have it, some don’t. In a painting that has it, specific material and visual attributes eclipse whatever genre, medium or aesthetic ideology that work might […]
Alan Davie and Albert Irvin
Robin Greenwood reviews Alan Davie & Albert Irvin at Gimpel Fils, London, on view through June 15, 2013. Greenwood writes that the work of Davie and Irvin "jarringly at odds… On the one hand you have Davie, able to conjure at will endlessly inventive and varied assemblages of marks, forms, splashes and drips, spatial motifs […]
Flight from Nature: Abstract as Ideal
Vincent Romaniello photoblogs the exhibition Flight from Nature: The Abstract as Ideal at the National Arts Club, New York, on view through May 31, 2013. The show features work by Andrea Belag, Paul D'Agostino, Danielle Dimston, Stephen Ellis, Molly Herman, David Hixon, Nicolas Holiber, Catherine Howe, Bill Jensen, Margrit Lewczuk, Riad Miah, John Newman, Fran […]
Frank Holliday: Studio Visit
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting visit the studio of painter Frank Holliday. Holliday recalls being to paint in plein air on a trip to Australia: "there's all my color theory and there's time and there's meaning – it was all there… with the weather and the light. It changed constantly… it solved all my problems…" […]
Maria Calandra / John Lees
Xico Greenwald reviews two exhibitions: John Lees at Betty Cuningham Gallery (through June 22) and Maria Calandra: Pencil in the Studio at Sardine (through June 16). For John Lees, Greenwald writes, "the seclusion of an upstate attic studio [is] where the painter found the physical and psychic space to make personal artworks from excavated memories. […]
Jennifer Bartlett: Chaos Theory
Jacob Feige reviews Jennifer Bartlett: Chaos Theory (1971-2013) at Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, on view through June 29, 2013. Feige writes that "Bartlett is able to use mathematical rules to create paintings that buzz unexpectedly with humanity, in contrast to other formula followers like Sol Lewitt and Carl Andre. Emerging just after those artists in the […]
Sanford Wurmfeld: Chorus of Color
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Heather Zises reviews two recent exhibitions Sanford Wurmfeld: Color Visions 1966 – 2013 at the Hunter College/Times Square Gallery and Sanford Wurmfeld: Light & Dark at Minus Space. Zises writes that “The key to appreciating these works has much to do with the figure-ground relationship of form and color. For each painting, Wurmfeld maps out […]