Nancy White @ Steven Zevitas
Joanne Mattera reviews the exhibition Nancy White: New Work at Steven Zevitas Gallery, Boston, on view through January 26, 2013. Mattera writes that "White’s work—small unframed paintings which appear almost monochromatic from a distance—reward a patient viewer with a richness of composition and hue. Once you get close enough, the paintings pull you in as […]
Louise P. Sloane: Interview
Phillip J. Mellen interviews painter Louise P. Sloane about her work, practice, and development as an artist. Sloane discusses a wide range of subjects from her intuitive approach to painting, one in which she "fuse[s] geometry, color, and texture," to formative influences including works by Josef Albers, Morris Louis, Gene Davis, and Ad Reinhardt that […]
Inventing Abstraction: Exhilirating & Wrong
Jed Perl reviews the exhibition Inventing Abstraction: 1910 – 1925 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, on view from December 23, 2012–April 15, 2013. Perl writes: "As [curator Leah] Dickerman tells the story, abstract art is a prescription rather than a permission. This is a terrible mistake. She is fascinated by work by […]
Towards Meaning in a Plural Painting World
Patrick Neal reports on the recent panel discussion “… towards meaning in a plural painting world,” moderated by Katy Siegel at Hunter College. The panel including Raphael Rubinstein, Merlin James, Dana Schutz, Richard Shiff, and moderator Siegel, set out to: "examine the condition of painting in its contemporary context… [to] discuss whether the current plurality […]
Image & Being in Painting
Mark Stone reflects on the ever-present possibility to see and form anew through the act of painting. Stone points to the self contained worlds in a late work by Picasso and a pastel by Degas. In the Degas, he writes, "everything feels close, contained. The surfaces are filled with crosshatches and heavy pastels. The beautiful […]
Jasper Hagenaar: Haven
Judith Vrancken reviews the exhibition Jasper Hagenaar: Haven at Jeanine Hofland Contemporary Art, Amsterdam, on view through February 2, 2013. Vrancken writes: "All of the paintings in the show are made with oil on paper, then pasted on panels. This technique contributes to the ephemerality of the scenes displayed; Hagenaar’s brushstrokes are clearly visible, making […]
Francesco Clemente: Mandala for Crusoe
Dr. Janet McKenzie reviews the exhibition Francesco Clemente: Mandala for Crusoe at Blain|Southern, London, on view through January 26, 2013. McKenzie writes that this "is a unique body of work, for its esoteric and enigmatic use of symbol and visual narrative. They allude to everything from Thomas Carlyle’s Victorian culture… As sage or mediator Clemente […]
Angular Seduction
Kris Chatterson photo blogs installation photos from the exhibition Angular Seduction curated by Vincent Como at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Brooklyn through February 17, 2013. The show features work by Maya Hayuk, Jason Karolak, Anna Kunz, Karl LaRocca, Melissa Oresky, and Kirk Stoller, artists who "Painters who are each navigating space through color, shape and line, […]
Manierre Dawson: First American Abstract Painter
Tyler Green argues that Manierre Dawson was the first american abstract painter, and thus Dawson's work is a glaring omission from the exhibition Inventing Abstraction: 1910 – 1925 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, on view through April 15, 2013. Green reports that Dawson "started painted abstractions in 1910, just after he’d joined […]
Louise Fishman: Family & Influences
Jennifer Zarro reports on an artist talk given by painter Louise Fishman whose work was on view in the recent exhibition Generations: Louise Fishman, Gertrude Fisher-Fishman, and Razel Kapustin at the Woodmere Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Zarro writes that the exhibition was "a powerful show about the strengths, styles, and inspirations shared among these three […]
Ridley Howard: Conversations with Albers
Rachel Reese reviews the exhibition Ridley Howard: Conversations with Albers at SCAD Atlanta, on view through February 8, 2013. Reese writes that Howard's work "is a balancing act between formal color studies, delicate portraiture, and quiet landscapes. The installation encourages this elemental balancing not only between subject matter, but also physical scale. The artworks therefore […]
Jen Hitchings: Interview
Valerie Brennan interviews painter Jen Hitchings about her work. Hitchings comments: "I paint from photographs, usually of a group of people at a party or some kind of celebration. They're always of very sporadic and candid moments. I'll usually draw from the photograph first, and then make the painting from the drawing. The first moments […]
Alison Fox @ Gasser Grunert Heim
James Kalm visits the exhibition Alison Fox: Paintings at Gasser Grunert Heim, New York, on view through February 16, 2013. In the press release Ana Cardoso writes that Fox's "abstractions pursue, in a manner specific to oil on canvas, the perambulations of material awareness brought forward by the staging of events and the elaboration of visual […]
Painting @ Frieze
Simon Bayliss cuts through the "cacophony of visual noise" and writes about some painting highlights from the 2012 Frieze Art Fair in London. Bayliss calls out works by Kevin Cosgrove, Peter Peri, Ellen Gronemeyer, Robert Overby, and 17th century master Margareta de Heer, "paintings which seemed curiously unaligned to the usually manicured algorithms of established […]
Israel Hershberg: Fields of Vision
John Seed interviews painter Israel Hershberg about his work on the occasion of the exhibition Israel Hershberg: Fields of Vision at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, on view through February 4, 2013. Hershberg remarks: "There is a quality, an essential concrete experience that I wish very much to transmit, but in its various formational stages, I […]
Paul Resika: True Believer
Thomas Micchelli writes about Paul Resika on the occasion of two concurrent shows: Resika: 8 + 8, 8 Paintings from 8 Decades at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects (through Feb 10) and Resika: 8 + 8, Eight Recent Works at Lori Bookstein Fine Art (through Feb 9). Micchelli recals that as a student Resika taught […]
Joyce Kozloff: Interview
On the occasion of the exhibition Joyce Kozloff: Other Geographies at CB1 Gallery, Los Angeles (through February 17, 2013), Betty Ann Brown interviews Joyce Kozloff about her history as a political artist and her recent series of paintings. Although Kozloff has worked in a variety of media she remarks: "I've always painted. Whether I paint […]
Roy De Forest: Unapologetic Good Will
Mario Naves posts about Roy De Forest on the occasion of the exhibition Roy De Forest; A Simple Life: Small Scale Paintings from 2000-2003 at George Adams Gallery, New York, on view through until February 9, 2013. Naves writes: "The thing is, De Forest’s paintings aren’t fantasies; they’re real. An artist’s responsibility is to create […]
Morandi: Lines of Poetry
Laura Cumming previews the exhibition Morandi: Works on Paper at the Estorick Collection, London, on view from January 16 – April 7, 2013. Cumming writes that Morandi "is not known for his lines. Rather the opposite: in the hazy world of his painted still lifes, everything appears muzzy and soft. The famous objects appearing on […]
A Provisional (Painting) Explanation
Brian Dupont
Brian Dupont defends the current trends of provisional and casual painting. Dupont writes: “Artists today are confronting an increasingly ramshackle future where aesthetic, political, economic, and ecological promises have been revealed as failures. If they are seeing a future where issues of scarcity become more urgent, materials must be recycled or scavenged from surplus, and long-held […]