Richard Serra: On Site
Painter Brian Dupont reviews two recent installations of the exhibition Richard Serra: Drawing, A Retrospective – at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and at The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas. Dupont writes: "Serra's use of paintstick and insistence on drawing as black poses an interesting dichotomy with the metal plates of his sculpture… the surfaces […]
Marsden Hartley in Dogtown
Ed Beem blogs about the exhibition Marsden Hartley: Soliloquy in Dogtown at the Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts, on view through October 14, 2012. Beem writes: "Regarded as the province of vagabonds, prostitutes, witches and feral dogs, Dogtown is just the sort of place that fires the artist's imagination… Hartley's interpretation of Dogtown runs toward […]
Hendrik Goltzius: An Exuberant Touch
Hylan Booker blogs about the paintings and engravings of Hendrik Goltzius. Although known for his printmaking, Booker notes that the "the sensuous and decadent allegorical themes would find bold expression in [Goltzius'] paintings, which he took up in his middle age. His extraordinarily sensitive sense of detail gives one the feeling that here's an artist […]
Michael Brennan: Interview
Brent Hallard interviews painter Michael Brennan about the development of his work. Brennan remarks: "I think a lot about my painting as (an) object, and the size best suited to the natural mark of the knife I use. I'm not interested in projecting to scale up, like Kline, Still, or Motherwell. I don't want to […]
Deborah Brown: Freewheeling
James Kalm visits the exhibition Deborah Brown: Freewheeling at the Active Space, Brooklyn, on view through July 1, 2012. Kalm notes: "Brown has transformed her neighborhood views into near fantasy scenes that conflates science-fiction landscapes with Color-Field abstraction. Tall stacks of flattened cars on towers recall the scaffolds of Indian burial platforms, and the hulking […]
A Visit to the New Barnes
Charles Kessler visits and reviews the new Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Kessler writes: "There are many good reasons why breaking the Barnes trust was a bad idea… And while a case can be made that this type of installation is a cultural artifact worth preserving, there are other ways, short of wholesale preservation, to document […]
Jean Hélion: Permanent Transformation
John Goodrich reviews the exhibition Jean Hélion: Five Decades at Schroeder Romero & Shredder, on view through June 30, 2012. Goodrich writes: "Rather than presuming a role for art – as transcendent object, or omniscient sign – Hélion simply absorbed, with a remarkably astute eye, great instances of traditional painting, and pursued its possibilities in his […]
Seeing Sienese
Laurie Fendrich considers the unique contributions of Siense Painters such as Simone Martini, Duccio Bartolo di Fredi, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Sano di Pietro, Sassetta, and Gentile da Fabriano. Fendrich writes: "Vasari's 16th-century Lives of the Artists bequeathed us a closed narrative whereby Western art culminates in Renaissance linear perspective, mastery of naturalistic anatomy, and […]
Thomas Nozkowski: In the Studio
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit the studio of painter Thomas Nozkowski. As well as sharing a look at his works in progress, Nozkowski shares his thoughts on painting. He remarks: "I… believe that if you can imagine a problem, something to make a painting of, you can also imagine a solution. So whatever the […]
Picasso’s Struggle: Reconciling Feeling and Form
Jed Perl reviews the exhibition Picasso and Françoise Gilot: Paris-Vallauris, 1943-1953 at Gagosian Gallery, New York, on view through June 30, 2012. Perl writes: "The fascination here is not so much in the great works this exhibition contains – although there are a few – but in the sense of a visionary struggling to move […]
Gandy Brodie: Wanderer Among the Rubble
John Yau re-introduces painter Gandie Brodie (1924–1975) whose work is on view in the exhibition Gandy Brodie: Ten Tenements at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York, through July 1, 2012. Yau writes: "In contrast to the loaded brush and aggressiveness we associate with [Norman] Bluhm and [Joan] Mitchell, Brodie's work is slow to reveal […]
Jan Müller’s Abstract Tale
An exhibition that showcases a number of Jan Müller’s mature, large-scale paintings is a welcome, if short lived, opportunity to see his monumental Abstract Expressionist allegories.
John Wesley: Repetition & Absence
James Kalm visits the recent exhibition John Wesley: Alice's Floor: Repetition and Absence at Fredericks & Freiser, New York. Kalm notes: "Using a very limited palette of blues, pinks and grays Wesley has fashioned a world of erotic understatement and comic narrative. 'Alice's Floor' which is composed of works produced between 1977 and 1990, displays […]
The Painted Word
Ann Knickerbocker blogs about the exhibition The Painted Word at Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, on view through July 14, 2012. The exhibition features visual artwork by Bay Area poets and writes including William Saroyan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Rexroth, Jack Hirschman, Jess, Robert Duncan, Michael McClure, Jack Micheline, Henry Miller, Kenneth Patchen, Christopher Felver, John Keating, […]
Super Saturated: Pigment & Pattern
Joanne Mattera blogs about the exhibition Super Saturated: Pigment and Pattern at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, New York, on view through August 19, 2012. Curator Kenise Barnes writes: "The term decoration was largely used pejoratively in art parlance in the 20th century in spite of non-Western cultures rich history of intricate patterning and decoration. […]
Elise Adibi: Da Capo
Joanna Kleinberg reviews the exhibition Elise Adibi: Da Capo at Churner and Churner, New York, on view through June 30, 2012. Kleinberg writes: "Adibi continues her abstractions in painting and drawing, working with a limited set of materials – canvas, carbon powder, charcoal, and oil paint. The assemblage of pencil drawing and painterly brushstrokes are […]
Talking Monochrome Blues
Thoughts on the continued resonance of monochrome painting inspired by the recent exhibition of paintings by Joshua Smith at Shoot the Lobster, New York. The work of Smith and other artists including Thomas Kratz, Dan Rees, Julia Rommel, is considered with regard to a question with "two implicit parts: one, whether an artist still stands […]
Monica Tap: Pictorial Intelligence
Sally McKay writes about the work of painter Monica Tap. McKay notes: "Tap collects source material for her large, lush paintings by shooting highly compressed digital video through the side window of a fast-moving car… All the depth and luminance is carefully rendered in thick paint. The paintings seem to emit light, like a screen, […]
Jake Berthot: In Studio
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit painter Jake Berthot's studio. Berthot remarks: "I'm interested in painting. I'm not interested in theory. I'm not interested in historical possibilities. It simply doesn't interest me; and that's not a hostile stance, that's… a declaration of freedom… I choose to be free." Jake Berthot: Artist Model, Angels Putti, Poetry […]
Regina Bogat: Interview
Jillian Steinhauer interviews painter Regina Bogat on the occasion of the exhibition Regina Bogat: Stars at Art 101, Brooklyn, NY, on view through July 1, 2012. Of her recent series of Stars works, Bogat remarks, "It originated with octagons, which was an architectural motif I found in a friend's house. It reminded me of Christian fonts […]