Lester Johnson’s Last Paintings
John Yau reviews the exhibition Lester Johnson: Last Paintings at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York, on view through November 20, 2011. Yau writes that "More than fifty years after his work first gained attention, [Johnson's] monochrome silhouettes remain strong and fresh, as well as anticipate the work of Joyce Pensato and others. But […]
Sterling Shaw’s Body Consciousness
Matthew Farina interviews Philadelphia-based painter Sterling Shaw about his work. Shaw notes: "Images can relay a complexity that words can't. We see before we speak and we read body language before we read text. It makes sense to me that an image can simply communicate something that can't be articulated easily. I was raised religious, […]
Bianca Beck: Making Space For Innocence
David Cohen reviews the exhibition Bianca Beck: Body at Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, on view through December 23, 2011. Cohen writes: "There is something deliciously grubby about the paintings and sculptures of Bianca Beck. She favors distressed, punctured, encrusted surfaces, an earthy, at times visceral palette and painterly gestures that border on violence. Lacerations, […]
Matthew R. Murphy: Interview
Interview with painter Matthew R. Murphy about his work and studio practice. Murphy notes: "I find my work caught between the world of illusion and the object with no clear way to resolve this. I find some ideas must be objects posing as paintings and sometimes paintings posing as objects, while still other times paintings […]
Pamela Jorden: Sun and Moon
Caleb de Jong reviews the exhibition Pamela Jorden: Sun and Moon at Klaus Von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, on view through December 4, 2011. Although Jorden's paintings reference both her studio surroundings and early modernist work by artists such as Delaunay, "A light touch prevents her work from becoming overly cerebral or beholden to her […]
Miles Richmond: On Art
Frank Hobbs' blogs selections from painter Miles Richmond's writings on art. A quote from Richmond: "We must recover the sense that the commitment to materials cannot be sidestepped. Inevitably we approach our subjects with thoughts and feelings; only training in grappling with materials in the presence of the subject makes it possible for thought and […]
Masterminding Leonardo
Chloé Nelkin reviews the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, National Gallery, London, on view through February 5, 2012. Nelkin writes that "The sensational and unprecedented loans and the amassing of these works is something that will, in all likelihood, never be attempted again. Nearly every surviving painting from Leonardo’s Milan […]
Ruth Miller’s Atmosphere of Thought
Powers of Observation
Painter Kim Sloane writes about the exhibition Ruth Miller: Recent Work at Lohin Geduld Gallery, New York, on view through November 12, 2011. Sloane writes that “The paintings display a mastery of color… and the ability to combine and structure pictures through both drawing and color… The elevation in Miller’s painting is achieved through this […]
High and Low: What is Excellence in the Arts?
In an illuminating, must-read keynote speech delivered at Augusta State University on October 21, 2011, painter and art critic Franklin Einspruch discusses the problem of defining excellence in the arts. In a discussion that centers on painting, Einspruch looks at the perception of excellence across high, middle, and low brow art and from the position […]
Polly Apfelbaum: Studio Visit
Joshua Abelow photoblogs a studio visit with artist Polly Apfelbaum. Roberta Smith noted in a 2010 review that "Ms. Apfelbaum… [is] trying a new tack. Working in a manner reminiscent of the colored-glass technique of milles fleurs, she has fashioned small, smooth, brightly patterned panels she calls Feelies from contrasting shades of polymer and plasticine […]
Ethel Schwabacher: Hungry for Light
Lesa Moriarity blogs about Hungry for Light, the journal of Abstract Expressionist painter Ethel Schwabacher. Moriarity writes: "Hungry for Light is full of depth, Schwabacher writes about literature, painting, sculpture, forms. I don’t know if I could find another artist journal like it… to read her thinking through details of the Myths, of decisions made, […]
Celebrating with Joanne Greenbaum
Brian Fee blogs about the exhibition Joanne Greenbaum: 1612 at D'Amelio Terras, on view through November 12, 2011. Fee writes that "While she joins Thomas Nozkowski and Tomma Abts, at least on an elementary level, in terms of small-scale abstraction, Greenbaum's compositions explode beyond the former artists' more formal architectures. That’s not to say her […]
Randy Bloom: Ultimately Joy
Piri Halasz reviews the work of painter Randy Bloom, on view in the exhibition Louise & Randy: Hotter than 'Ell at Sideshow Gallery in Brooklyn through November 13, 2011. Halasz notes that Bloom's "artistic lineage is distinguished, beginning both earlier and later than geometric abstraction — earlier in the sense that she takes off more […]
Rothko in Britain
Rebecca Wright reviews the exhibition Rothko in Britain at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, on view through February 26, 2012. Wright notes that Abstract Expressionism holds a "pivotal position… in the canon of art history, as the turning point when 'art' migrated from Europe to America following the Second World War. By using a past exhibition […]
Modern Antique
Christopher Knight reviews the exhibition Modern Antiquity: Picasso, de Chirico, Léger, and Picabia in the Presence of the Antique at the J. Paul Getty Museum, on view through January 16, 2012. Knight writes that the exhibition "considers myriad ways in which ancient Greek and Roman art — the epitome of Western tradition — interested painters […]
John Marin: Never a Follower
Betsy Lewis reviews the exhibition John Marin: Moderninsm at Midcentury at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, on view through January 8, 2012. Lewis writes that exhibition "offers work from the final 20 years of Marin's life – a masculine vision of city, sea, and landscape and a profile of an artist who dabbled […]
Hopper & Hammershøi
Leslie Anderson blogs about Edward Hopper's inclusion in the 1952 Venice Biennale. She notes that the positive reception of Hopper's work in Europe may be linked to an existing contemplative tradition in European painting beginning with Jan Vermeer and including Hopper's near contemporary, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi. Anderson quotes Stuart Preston of The New York […]
Thierry De Cordier
Hans-Maarten Post blogs about the exhibition Thierry De Cordier at Xavier Hufkens, Brussells, on view through December 10, 2011. De Cordier's paintings appear to be romantic images of land and sea scapes, however, Post writes, "Anyone spending some time in front of the mesmerizing canvasses of this relatively small show (six paintings and a couple […]
Ronnie Landfield Replies
Painter Ronnie Landfield responds in print to recent criticism of the hard edge areas of color that appear at the bottom of each of his paintings. Landfield discusses the origin, formal, and meaning of these color bars in functional, art historical, and political terms. The exhibition Ronnie Landfield: Structure and Color was recently on view […]
Louise P. Sloane
Piri Halasz reviews the work of Louise P. Sloane on view in the exhibition Louise & Randy: Hotter than 'Ell at Sideshow Gallery in Brooklyn through November 13, 2011. Halasz writes that Sloane's paintings are "painstakingly covered with completely straight, narrow rows of somewhat squiggly rows of paint. These have been put in place by […]