Visions of Arcadia
Andrea Kirsh reviews the exhibition Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse: Visions of Arcadia at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on view through September 3, 2012. Kirsh writes: "In terms of the exhibition's theme one has to ask, why this subject then? And why such monumental paintings? The previous avante-garde had pointedly rejected the hierarchies of the Academy, […]
Joan Watts: Poems & More
Jenni Higginbotham interviews painter Joan Watts about her practice and the works in her recent exhibition Poems & More at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Santa Fe. Watts remarks: "I am very attracted to reducing the means by which I create… that has been a process I have been going through ever since I moved to […]
Caro Niederer @ Hauser & Wirth
Caleb De Jong reviews the exhibition Caro Niederer Paintings at Hauser & Wirth, New York, on view through July 27, 2012. De Jong writes: "Niederer's transformation of photograph to hand-made object informs her entire practice… [Her] pre-existing source material, family snapshots, postcards, Indian erotic imagery, is twirled through her chosen medium, in this case paint… […]
John Graham & the American Vanguard
In the second segment of his weekly podcast, Tyler Green talks with curator Karen Wilkin about the exhibition American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning and Their Circle, 1927–1942, on view at the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas through August 19, 2012. (Note: the first segment is an interview with artist Barbara Kruger, Wilkin's […]
Matt Phillips: In Conversation
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Matt Phillips about his work and process. Phillips remarks: "I'm interested in working with these things that are dumb fundamental components of visual language – the square, the triangle, the octagon, the stuff that is in everyone's kitchen sink, the stuff that everyone knows. If you work with simple components, and […]
Renewing Faith in Painting
Brendan S. Carroll reviews the exhibition Material Tak at Panepinto Galleries, Jersey City, New Jersey, on view through July 15, 2012. Carroll writes: "What can contemporary abstract painting tell us about the medium today, and why does it continue to stir the soul? To answer these questions, artist Kara Rooney, the curator of Material Tak […]
Retro Painting
Mark Stone muses on painting in an age where innovation of the medium is no longer possible. Stone writes that "the absolute truth is that we can not do anything more to painting. The 600 or so years of Western painting has gone full circle. It's ALL been done – from a to z. And […]
Double Vision
Adam Walker visits the exhibition Double Vision, curated by Katrina Blannin, at at Lion and Lamb Gallery, London, on view through July 14, 2012. Walker writes: "As eluded to in the title, this exhibition of contemporary abstract painting sets out to explore a series of binary oppositions: figure and field, surface and depth, chance and […]
Guillermo Kuitca: Painting as a Resistance Movement
Mari Carmen Ramírez interviews artist Guillermo Kuitca. Kutica comments: "Many times the voice of an artist unfolds into a painting. I do not think that painting is a torch that has to be passed, nor is it a tradition that has to be maintained. Painting is a very resistant medium, but my intention is to […]
Kadar Brock: In Conversation
Matt Jones interviews painter Kadar Brock about his work and practice. Brock comments: "I don't think about the body in a direct or traditional sense, but… they are very physical paintings. I make them laying on top of them, pushing into them, scraping away at them, sanding them and so on. And I touch them, […]
Luca Signorelli: Ingenuity & Spirit
Julie Beckers reviews the exhibition Luca Signorelli: de Ingegno et Spirto Pelegrino (ingenuity and pilgrim spirit) at Perugia, Orvieto, Città di Castello through August 26, 2012. Beckers notes that the show allows for a comparison between Piero della Francesca and Signorelli. She writes: "The influence Piero della Francesca had on the young Signorelli is unmistakable in [the […]
Bellini, Titian, Lotto at the Met
Laura Gilbert reviews the exhibition Bellini, Titian, Lotto: North Italian Paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, on view through September 3, 2012. Gilbert writes: "There's a dead Christ with the Virgin Mary and St. John by the great Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini — emotional and simply yet subtly colored […]
Martha Diamond: Bright Brush
Ilka Scobie reviews the exhibition Martha Diamond: Bright Brush Paintings at Sue Scott Gallery, New York, on view through July 27, 2012. Scobie writes that "the abbreviated brushstrokes [Diamond's] now using create gestural markings and simplified imagery, leaping from the austere though under-painted Pentimento to the linear brevity used to playfully depict weather in Blue […]
Joanne Greenbaum: Studio Visit
John Yau visits the studio of painter Joanne Greenbaum and looks at Greenbaum's other body of work – ceramics – and the relationship between the two modes of working. Yau writes: "The layering and structuring going on in Greenbaum's current paintings are swayed by her exploration of ceramics. I see her interest in glazes, and […]
Rodney Dickson
James Kalm visits the exhibtion Rodney Dickson New Paintings at Gasser & Grunert, New York, on view through July 13, 2012. In the video Kalm talks with Dickson about the exhibition. Kalm notes that the show "displays examples of some of the most heavily pigmented oil paintings currently being produced in New York. A luminescent […]
Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings
A new video introduces the exhibition Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings at Tate Liverpool, on view through October 8, 2012. In the video Mike Leigh, Nicholas Serota, and painter Fiona Rae discuss shared qualities between the three artists in the show and the freedoms exhibited by artists later in their careers.
60 Painters
Barbara Hobot reviews the recent survey exhibition of Canadian painting, 60 Painters at Humber Arts and Media Studios, Ontario, Canada. Hobot writes that the show "provided visitors with a recent trajectory through contemporary painting. They were allowed to draw connections between the works of established artists and those of more emerging practitioners. Influences were traced from […]
Caro Niederer: Interview
Tom Chen blogs about the work of Swiss painter Caro Niederer now on view at Hauser & Wirth, New York through July 27, 2012. Chen writes that Niederer's recent work focuses on "everyday subjects, like a kitchen table with a vase of flowers, a street in front of her home, or the basketball court where her […]
Meg Lipke: Studio Visit
Austin Thomas photoblogs a visit to the studio of painter Meg Lipke. Thomas writes that Lipke employs an "expressive painterly technique employing hot beeswax and India-ink with acrylic paints and fabric dyes. Her surfaces are gorgeous, luminous and distinct."
Rothko Chapel: Art, Meditation & Reverence
John Seed writes about the trend toward "slow looking" he observed recently at the exhibition Richard Diebenkorn: Ocean Park at the Orange County Museum of Art and traces its roots to the Rothko Chapel commission. Seed writes that at the Diebenkorn show he had "noticed that the galleries were unusually hushed, and that people were […]