William Turnbull: Beyond Time
Alex Turnbull and Pete Stern post an excerpt from their documentary Beyond Time: William Turnbull. In the clip painter and sculptor William Turnbull "discusses the relation his experiences as a pilot during World War II had on the development of his art, and specifically his attitude to abstraction. More clips are available on the William […]
Turner: In the Light of Claude
Marina Vaizey reviews the exhibition Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude at the National Gallery, London, on view through June 5, 2012. Vaizey notes that Turner "took from Claude the vastness of landscape, its beauty and importance, but perhaps above all, as the exhibition title suggests, the overwhelming inspiration was a Claudian illumination, the […]
Berthe Morisot: Pioneering Impressionism
Grégory Picard reviews the Berthe Morisot Retrospective at the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, on view through July 1, 2012. Picard writes that this is "the first large-scale Morisot retrospective since 1941… restores Morisot to a central position in art history and in the Impressionist movement, which is all too often limited to Monet, Degas, Renoir, […]
Elena Sisto: Interview
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Elena Sisto about her work. Regarding the figures in her paintings Sisto notes that "the characters come out of the paint, the light, and the mood of the light… I observe people carefully; I stare at people on the subway more than I maybe should, and I draw from life. The […]
Douglas Florian
Mario Naves blogs about the work of Douglas Florian on the occasion of Florian's exhibition Dawn Thieves at BravinLee Programs, New York, on view through May 5, 2012. Naves writes that "Florian creates heraldic images that simultaneously bring to mind the natural world, the Hebrew alphabet, Indian miniatures, graffiti and astronomical diagrams. Made with gouache […]
Hans Hofmann: Art Like Life is Real
Piri Halasz reviews Hans Hofmann: Art Like Life is Real at Ameringer-McEnery-Yohe, New York on view through April 21, 2012. Halasz notes "two surprises in the current selection, two aspects of Hofmann's art that I'd never fully appreciated before. The first was his use of thin, straight lines… The second thing I'd never responded to […]
The Bay Area Figurative Legacy
John Seed reviews the exhibition Legacy in Continuum: Bay Area Figuration at the Bakersfield Museum of Art, on view through May 27, 2012. Seed notes that "the show pairs the work of some early Bay Area notables — Elmer Bischoff, Joan Brown, William 'Theophilius' Brown, Richard Diebenkorn, Nathan Oliveira and Paul Wonner — with a […]
Laurel Sucsy: Chasing the Rabbit
Whitney Ranson reviews an exhibition of paintings by Laurel Sucsy entitled Chasing the Rabbit at Clough-Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee, on view through March 30, 2012. Ranson writes: "At the forefront of the numerous juxtapositions that Sucsy creates in her paintings is the contrast between the recognizable and the abstracted. Sucsy's work becomes reminiscent […]
Lauren Luloff at Horton Gallery
Rick Briggs reviews the exhibition Lauren Luloff: Recent Small Works at Horton Gallery, New York, on view through March 31, 2012. Briggs writes that the"risky openness of process makes Luloff like the proverbial tight rope walker working without a net, or, rather, perhaps the 'net' in this case, is her painting ground which happens to […]
Ellen Berkenblit
Deven Golden reviews an exhibition of new paintings by Ellen Berkenblit at Anton Kern Gallery, New York, on view through March 31, 2012. Golden writes that in Birkenblit's recent paintings "the colors continually take precedent and pull the viewer's eye contrary to representational logic. The dichotomy created between figuration and abstraction simply refuses to coalesce, […]
Ellsworth Kelly: The Purist
Hylan Booker blogs about the exhibition Ellsworth Kelly: Prints and Paintings on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) through April 22, 2012. Booker writes that Kelly's work is "about space – the stuff in between the drawn lines, the transient shadows, the reflections thrown on the floor – the what's inside […]
Andrea Belag: Interview
Debu Barve interviews painter Andrea Belag about her work and process. Belag remarks: "My paintings have also been described as a performance, albeit, a very private performance. Most of the paintings are completed in one working session and they are painted in one layer wet into wet paint. Therefore, I need to concentrate fully. It […]
Andrew Masullo: Profile
Carol Kino profiles Andrew Masullo whose paintings are on view at the Whitney Biennial through May 27, 2012. Kino notes that Masullo is "One of only a few living painters in the performance-heavy display, Mr. Masullo has been acknowledged by many as a star of the show."
Avigdor Arikha
Caleb De Jong reviews the exhibition Avigdor Arikha: Works From the Estate at Marlborough Gallery New York, on view through April 21, 2012. De Jong writes: "Usually intimately small, a few inches up and down, or medium sized, a few feet either way, Arikha's pictures are curtailed and often blank. Corners of desks, the spines […]
Vilhelm Hammershøi’s Distilled Art
Altoon Sultan blogs about the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershøi. Sultan writes: "The close harmony of grays and blacks, the stillness, the soft light, the simple compositions lend to Hammershøi's paintings a sense that we are seeing what is essential in his world and thus in ours."
Forrest Bess: Influence & History
In the second part of his essay Without Elaboration, John Yau traces the history of Forrest Bess' rise from obscurity to recognition. Yau describes Forrest Bess' influence on subsequent generations of painters noting: "Amidst all the hoopla about the return to painting, specifically figuration (and the overheated frenzy about Neo-Expressionism), Bess offered an alternative, particularly […]
Defending Painting & Sculpture
Charlie Finch bemoans the emphasis on performance art in the 2012 Whitney Biennial. His excoriating critique concludes: "Painting and sculpture exist for a reason, folks: to inspire contemplation of the fixed and unchangeable across the fluxing ages, to comfort us and give us the illusion of depth and meaning in life."
Peter Sharp: Will To Form
Video interview with painter Peter Sharp about his work and process, posted on the occasion of the exhibition Peter Sharp: Will To Form at the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Sharp says: "The work will end up as an abstraction of something, but everything comes from the drawing… The work that I make has to […]
Jules Olitski’s Revelation
Sharon Butler posts a new video on the painter Jules Olitski produced on the occasion of the exhibtion Revelation: Major Paintings by Jules Olitski, at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Texas, on view through May 6, 2012. In the film Olitski dicusses the "meaning" of abstracion and his work, noting: "Decisions are being made […]
Paintings from Armory Week
Joanne Mattera photo blogs a range of paintings on view at the Armory Week art fairs. She writes that the paintings on view encompassed "a range of esthetic and material expression. Here it includes the mineral pigments of Suzan Frecon, to the egg tempera and gold leaf of Mary Obering, to the puddled paint of […]