Leonardo’s Competing Visions
Charles Hope examines the two versions of Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks, on view opposite each other at the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan at the National Gallery, London (through February 5, 2012). Hope writes that "Although the compositions are very similar, each creates a very different impression. The figures […]
Trisha Brown: Dancing Drawing
John Haber reviews an exhibition of monumental drawings by Trisha Brown at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, on view through January 25, 2012. Haber writes that Brown's drawings "look like nothing so much as late Pollock, when the canvas all but emptied out, color vanished, and the human figure almost emerged. A painter of […]
Jeffrey Dennis: Interview
Dougal McKenzie interviews painter Jeffrey Dennis about his painting and critical theory in relation to studio practice. Dennis notes that "There are some extremely intelligent, conceptually-led artists working today who turn their hand to painting. But sometimes the results lack the 'complexity-in-depth' that the best paintings have, and which would keep you returning to re-engage […]
Bill Jensen: New Paintings
James Kalm video blogs a visit to an exhibition of new paintings by Bill Jensen at Cheim & Read, New York, on view through February 18, 2012. Kalm notes that "Jensen is an exemplary practitioner of what is referred to as the contemporary New York School. As a painter with an alchemical knowledge of his […]
Dana Gordon
James Panero profiles painter Dana Gordon. Panero writes that Gordon is "dedicated to the conversation of art – a visual conversation that is articulated through basic colors, shapes, and lines… Rather than exhaust a simple language, Gordon has demonstrated how a few basic elements can captivate us with a kaleidoscope of visual interest. His paintings […]
Jean-Frédéric Schnyder
Paddy Johnson reviews the exhibition Jean-Frédéric Schnyder: Landschaft (Landscape) I-XXXV at the Swiss Institute, New York, on view through February 26, 2012. Johnson writes that "while Schnyder's landscapes may engage in sentimentality, they lack the preciousness that defines much of today’s kitsch. Motifs are frequently reused, the canvas size never changes, and in one instance […]
Blots, Stains & Smears
Paul Behnke photoblogs a visit to the recent exhibition Blots, Stains and Smears at Transition Gallery. The show, curated by Phillip Allen, featured paintings by Mark Joyce, Iain Nicholls, and William Gharraie. The gallery notes that this is the third in an "ongoing series of shows examining aspects of contemporary painting, all of which are […]
Claude Lorrain: The Enchanted Landscape
Michael Spens reviews the recent exhibition Claude Lorrain: The Enchanted Landscape at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The exhibtion will be on view at Stadel Museum, Frankfurt from February 3 to May 6, 2012. Spens notes that "The essence of Claude's predominantly landscape subject matter was one of sublimity, even serendipity, expressing the primacy of nature […]
What Paint Does
Robin Greenwood considers the dual (and competing) roles of paint as both a material and as a "designator and articulator of form and space." He asks: "how do we reconcile illusion with being abstract? This conundrum is probably why the phenomenological aspects of medium and ground keep being obsessed over, as a desperate attempt to […]
The Surface of Things
Altoon Sultan blogs a photo essay about surfaces in painting. Sultan writes: "We often think of 'surface' as a word that demeans; it is the opposite of depth. But an intense focus on things can be a way to explore their form and meaning: it can be a celebration of life. When I went to […]
Alberto Burri: Form and Matter
Laura Cumming reviews the exhibition Alberto Burri: Form and Matter at Estorick Collection, London, on view through April 7, 2012. Cumming writes that "Although the earliest works in this show are figurative – a melancholy bookseller, a melancholy fish out of water – Burri, along with many Italian artists of his generation who reacted against […]
Encountering Gesture
Victoria Webb looks at the gestural work of several painters including Elisabeth Cummings, Anne Smart, Alan Gouk, and Gillian Ayres. All of the works all exhibit a preference for "high chroma with an abstract and gestural bent," and Webb notes with appreciation Gillian Ayres' remark that "using oil paint is like working with messy and […]
Mercedes Matter: Valuing Traditional Disciplines
Frank Hobbs posts Mercedes Matter's 1973 remarks about learning to be an artist, wherein she answers the question: "is there any use for a young artist… to study the traditional disciplines?" She begins her response: "How arrogant it would be to imagine that what has happened in art during the last few years could have […]
The Indiscipline of Enjoyment
Andy Parkinson muses on the exhibition The Indiscipline of Painting: International Abstraction from 1960 to Now, on view at Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre through March 10 2012 (formerly at Tate St. Ives) . Parkinson writes that "Opticality seems an important sub plot in this show, and its’ not just the Peter Young or the […]
Bill Jensen @ Cheim & Read
Caleb De Jong reviews the exhibition Bill Jensen at Cheim and Read, New York, on view through February 18, 2012. De Jong writes that Jensen's "new paintings provide a tonal and chromatically hushed experience. Brush-marks no longer create unified composition, instead forms float atop the picture plane and splotches of collage-like paint stitch the surface […]
Gerhard Richter: Nowhere Man
Richard Rhodes reviews the recent exhibition Gerhard Richter: Panorama at Tate Modern, London. Rhodes writes that "The Tate show attests to a restless mind that never strays far from the complicated interactions of images and paint. Richter’s photographic Atlas is not part of the exhibition, but even without it, it is clear that for Richter, […]
Rothko: Looking at Looking
Tess Thackara considers Sandra Lousada's extraordinary photographs of visitors to the 1961 Mark Rothko exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. Thackara writes: "Often compositionally beautiful, the black-and-white images reveal onlookers lingering before paintings, leaning against gallery walls and columns, lazing on benches and soaking up the environment of Rothko’s work. Many appear lost in solitary reverie, […]
Helen Frankenthaler: Prints
Sarah Kirk Hanley blogs about Helen Frankenthaler's groundbreaking prints. Hanley writes that "Frankenthaler’s contributions as a painter are generally the focus of discussion, but her achievements as a printmaker are equal – if not greater – in importance. In fact, she continued to make inroads in this medium and garner critical attention for her editions […]
June Leaf & Edwin Dickinson
Mario Naves reviews the exhibitions June Leaf: Recent Work at Edward Thorp Gallery (through January 28, 2012) and Edwin Dickinson In Retrospect at Babcock Galleries (through January 27, 2012. Both exhibitions, Naves notes, celebrate "intractable individualism – the hard-won visions of sundry loners, originals and eccentrics [that] speak more to the country's can-do spirit than […]
Sydney Licht: Interview
Neil Plotkin interviews painter Sydney Licht about her work and process. Licht notes that "Well, with each painting it's a different story, like a different puzzle to solve. What shows through from underneath is the result of the process of finding the right hue and value relationships as a natural part of making the painting […]