Ray Parker’s Meta-World
Loosely brushed but clearly defined forms on off-white grounds that give the curious impression they are observations painted from life even though they are abstract expressionist works through and through.
Geometric Abstraction: Masked & Loose
Sharon Butler looks at two shows of geometric abstraction to start the new year: Halsey Hathaway and Gary Peterson, and Rob de Oude at Storefront in Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY, on view through February 5, 2012 and In Line/Out of Line at Heiner Contemporary, Washington, DC., on view through January 14, 2012. Butler observes two trends: […]
Spanish Colonial Biombos
Sofía Sanabrais explores the relationship between Japanese screens and spanish colonial "biombo" paintings. She writes that biombo is "a Portuguese and Spanish transliteration of the Japanese word for folding screen, byōbu–the Mexican artform was inspired by its Japanese prototype. The versatility of the folding screen contributed to its quick adaptation to daily life; because the […]
De Kooning: Postscript
D Richmond wraps up a series of blog posts on the recent de Kooning Retrospective at MoMA with a personal post, summing up what de Kooning's body of work means to today's painters. Richmond writes: "De Kooning's brush floats around the figures space and presence, implying the figures presence through the manipulation of paint effects […]
Other-worldliness
Brendan S. Carroll reviews the exhibition Otherworldliness at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, on view through January 21, 2012. Carroll notes that the paintings on view, including works by Federico Castellon, George Tooker, Hughie Lee-Smith, Irving Norman, Jared French and John Wilde, "[strike] a balance between old-master-style rendering and nontraditional use of color and space […]
Helmut Federle: References Are Energies
Jeffrey Collins posts thoughts from the painter Helmut Federle. Federle situates himself in relation to the whole of art, noting that "as an artist, don’t have to invent something, I just go down the same path as everybody else, and make distinctions in my period, my time. References are warm and beautiful energies. I am […]
Edvard Munch: L’oeil moderne
Heathcote Ruthven reviews the exhibition Edvard Munch, L'oeil moderne at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, on view through January 23, 2011. Ruthven writes: "Rather than a study of modernity in Munch per se, the exhibition presents the relationship between Munch's art and technology. Technology in the wider sense of the term, his own body- the hand […]
Forrest Bess Re-Appraised
Robert Boyd posts a video of a Forrest Bess painting being appraised on PBS's Antiques Roadshow. The video is notable for the juxtaposition of the appraiser's helpful art historical context and the personal comments by the owner who was a friend of Bess and received the painting as a gift. In the video the painting's […]
See Yourself Seeing
Anne Sherwood Pundyk posts an essay on the importance of physical presence in viewing an artwork. She notes that "The impression should be our own impression, not a received impression from an 'authority,' and the work should be the actual piece, not a facsimile. We have all had an initial impression of a simple image […]
Peter Gallo @ Horton Gallery
Kris Chatterson blogs installation photos from the exhibition Peter Gallo : Paint Symptoms at Horton Gallery, New York, on view through January 14, 2012. More images and the essay Peter Gallo A—Z by Kevin Killian are available on the gallery website.
Eric Holzman: Studio Visit
Steven Alexander pays a studio visit to painter Eric Holzman's New York studio. Alexander writes that "Eric often works for years on a painting, constantly shifting shapes and adjusting color — leaving it, coming back months later and opening it up again. Recently he has been attempting to shorten that process a bit with a […]
“Make it New:” On Originality
Altoon Sultan blogs about what constitutes originality in art by asking: "Is Ezra Pound's modernist injunction to 'Make it new' useful?" She continues: "I believe that time to be alone, time to work, and to think, time to be open to the world, are necessary in order to find our true selves in the cacophony […]
Clare Woods: Scale
Andy Parkinson blogs about the exhibition Clare Woods: The Unquiet Head at The Hepworth Wakefield, on view through January 29, 2012. Parkinson notes that in addition to the impressive scale of Woods' paintings, "You can see the connection to Barbara Hepworth in the landscape and figure references, figures that is of stone, 'natural' sculpture. The […]
Ted Faiers: Flat Space
Paul Behnke blogs images from the exhibition Ted Faiers, Flat Space: Paintings and Works on Paper 1953-56 at David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, on view through January 28, 2012. Behnke writes that "Faiers (1908 – 1985) was a Canadian by birth. After a short period in New York he moved to Memphis, TN and taught at […]
Frans Hals: Small-Scale Portraits
Laura Gilbert blogs about two rarely seen small-scale portraits by Frans Hals in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gilbert notes that "In the museum's huge, 228-work 'Age of Rembrandt' show in 2007, these roughly 9-by-6.5-inch paintings of Petrus Scriverius and his wife, Anna van der Aar, were unexpected standouts… yet [are] hardly […]
Osamu Kobayashi: Interview
Painter's Bread
Michael Rutherford interviews painter Osamu Kobayashi. Kobayashi notes that "Paint became my medium of choice for a couple of reasons… It never seemed 'dead' to me. I also liked paint's unpredictability. When approaching my work, I usually have an intention in mind, but often, what I have in mind is different than what actually happens […]
Fluidity in Focus
Painter Christopher Chippendale writes a short essay on perceptual painting entitled Fluidity in Focus. Chippendale writes that "Being a perceptual painter means that I accept as a condition of painting that appearances are fundamentally unstable and relational, that reality is vulnerable to distortion both from without as well as from within. The flow of time itself, […]
Basil Beattie: Taking Steps
An excerpt from Nick de Ville's essay for the exhibition Basil Beattie: Onward and Upward at James Hyman Fine Art, London, on view through January 21, 2012. De Ville writes that "Since the late eighties Basil Beattie has been exploring something inimical to the strict tenets of the tradition of abstract painting out of which […]
Eva Hesse: Haunted
Robin Cembalest questions why the current exhibition Eva Hesse Spectres 1960 at the Brooklyn Museum "neglects the Jewish history that framed and influenced her art." Cembalest notes that the paintings themselves are "like de Koonings and Giacomettis with their flesh dripping, and their eyes gouged out. With anxious, messy strokes, Hesse conjured ghastly girlish faces […]
Beverly Fishman: Deceptive Pleasures
Donald Kuspit reviews the exhibition Beverly Fishman at Galerie Richard, New York, on view through January 28, 2012. Kuspit writes that Fishman's "patterns are transcriptions of EKG, EEG, and neuron spike readouts, with some bar codes thrown in to add a social measure to the disembodied bodily data. And, for good measure, some of the […]