Augustus Vincent Tack @ the Phillips
Tyler Green blogs about a new installation of Augustus Vincent Tack's abstract paintings commissioned by collector Duncan Phillips on display at The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. through December 31, 2011. Green writes that "It could be argued that Tack’s abstractions also seem to anticipate Clyfford Still… they show a reluctant modernist pushing himself away […]
Paul Corio: Interview
John F. Moore interviews painter Paul Corio about color and abstract painting. Corio notes: "Color is really sort of bashful. If you use really active figures, particularly if you use faces, or anything recognizable, the color wants to jump into the back seat. Red would much rather be the property of a fire engine or […]
Andrew Wyeth: Looking Deeply
Rebecca Harp blogs about the work of painter Andrew Wyeth. She writes "When I look at Andrew Wyeth's paintings, the last thing that comes to mind is painstaking, empty illustration. There is a love driving his work, both found and lost. I always feel privileged to look at his paintings, swept away by the chance […]
Goya’s Micro-Surrealism
William Poundstone blogs about Goya's miniature paintings on ivory, two of which are now on view at the Getty Museum. Poundstone notes that "To create these pictures, Goya coated a small slip of ivory with lamp black and dropped water on it. This produced random splotches not unlike those prized by Japan’s contemporary Rimpa school. […]
Clyfford Still’s Triumph
Nicholas Zeman documents painter Clyfford Still's extraordinary success at protecting his vision and work in the face of art world presurres. Zeman notes that "Still wasn't a manipulator; he was always forthcoming and direct. He was, however, able to see opportunities, and he did know how to make people feel privileged just to see his […]
Munro Galloway & Dushko Petrovich: Interview
Rachel Wetzler interviews artists Munro Galloway and Dushko Petrovich about their recent exhibition You Must Change Your Life at artist-run Soloway Gallery in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The two artists discuss their work in relation to text and literature as well as the challenges and freedoms of curating, publishing (Petrovich is co-founder and editor of Paper […]
John Marin: How an Artist Vanished
Terry Teachout investigates why and how an important artist like John Marin has 'vanished' from the critical conversation. Marin's work is currently the subject of two museum exhibitions. Teachout notes that each "make[s] a powerful case for taking a second look at Mr. Marin… now necessary, since [he] has in recent years fallen into something […]
Abel Baker Gutierrez: Swimming
Christopher Knight reviews the exhibition Abel Baker Gutierrez: Swimming at Luis de Jesus Gallery, Santa Monica, CA on view through August 27, 2011. Knight remarks that Gutierrez's paintings, "all but one on wood panel, have the look and feel of oil sketches. The abbreviation of the paint-handling is beneficial. Rather than laborious finish, which would […]
EJ Hauser: Studio Visit
Maria Calandra visits the Brooklyn studio of painter EJ Hauser. "EJ utilizes text in her paintings in a variety of different ways. It can be used as a springboard for creating a lusciously surfaced multi-layered abstraction, a way of presenting the viewer with a single word or phrase that begs to be spoken loudly, or […]
Caravaggio & His Followers in Rome
David Balzer reviews Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome on view at the National Gallery of Canada through September 11, 2011. Balzer notes: "What emerges above all in 'Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome' is [the curators'] desire for us to read the artist as revolutionarily authentic, down-to-earth, experiential. In other words, realist. …placing Caravaggio […]
Flowers for Summer @ Michael Werner Gallery
16 Miles of String
Andrew Russeth reviews the exhibition Flowers for Summer at Michael Werner Gallery on view through September 10, 2011. The show features paintings by Picasso, Kurt Schwitters, Sigmar Polke, Peter Doig, Eugène Leroy and others. Russeth writes that the "… simple title and self-explanatory premise [belie] the high quality of work on view. That Schwitters, for […]
Hugo van der Goes: Spiritual Vision & Realism
Jonathan Jones blogs about Hugo Van der Goes' Trinity Altarpiece, currently on view in the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. Jones writes that the Altarpiece is one of Van der Goes' "finest extant works… the paintings reveal a king and queen at prayer, flanked by saints, in a church that is painted in depth – a […]
Jim Dine @ the Morgan Library
Reid Singer reviews the exhibition Jim Dine: The Glyptotek Drawings at the Morgan Library on view through September 4, 2011. Singer writes: "…the exhibition as a whole exceeds the sum of its parts. Approaching the drawings in tight succession in a single, dark-toned room, I had the down-right mah-velous feeling of walking around in the […]
Sandra Gamarra: Faithful & the Exalted
Shana Beth Mason blogs about the exhibition Sandra Gamarra: At the Same Time (Al Mismo Tiempo) on view at the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach through October 16, 2011. Mason writes: "Like Struth's photographs of patrons in the Louvre, the Accademia, and the Vatican, Gamarra takes painted snapshots of passersby in a place comparable […]
Anselm Kiefer’s World of Devastation
Graham Fuller reviews the documentary film Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow. The film's setting is Kiefer's ruin of a studio in the South of France. Fuller writes that "Kiefer took over the 35 hectares of the industrial wasteland La Ribaute, near Barjac, and turned the atelier into a sprawling Gesamtkunstwerk, or 'total work of […]
Rembrandt: Face of Jesus
Andrea Kirsh blogs about the exhibition Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) on view through October 30, 2011. The exhibition centers around Rembrandt's refusal to paint Jesus according to convention. Kirsch writes: "around 1648… [Rembrandt] broke with the convention, well-established in Western Europe… of portraying Christ as fair […]
Stephen Westfall: Purism Off Kilter
David Cohen writes about painter Stephen Westfall’s work and its influence on his recent curatorial efforts. Cohen notes “At first [Westfall’s] compositions strike the viewer as well-behaved structures of pattern with decorative correlates in the applied arts… But his visual wit goes beyond mere reference to recent abstract art history. A key element in his […]
Paul Branca: Waitings
Caleb De Jong reviews the exhibition Paul Branca: Waitings at Scaramouch Gallery, New York on view through August 12, 2011. De Jong writes: "Branca takes from representation, collage, script and abstraction and orders them into an uneasy polyglot whole…. Branca re-arranges the signage that makes up the normal line of vision for an average city […]
Remembering John Hoyland
Mel Gooding remembers abstract painter John Hoyland who died July 31, 2011 at the age of 76. Gooding writes: "For Hoyland, it was necessary for paintings to be self-sufficient machines, constructed to convey a powerful charge of visual, mental and emotional energy without recourse to any historically established figurative imagery. The expressive force of his […]
John Hoyland (1934 – 2011)
Painter John Hoyland died yesterday at age 76. Hoyland was part of the 1960 exhibition Situation: An Exhibition of British Abstract Painting, which also featured Gillian Ayres and William Turnbull. This exhibition featured large-scale abstract paintings that involved the viewer’s entire field of vision creating an immersive experience or “situation”. 1 In the 1960’s, Hoyland […]