In Perpetuity: Abstract Now / Abstract Then
Danielle Sommer argues that two simultaneous exhibitions at the Berkeley Art Museum Abstract Then and Abstract Now (on view through April 17, 2011) would enrich each other if combined. "There are so many connections to be drawn between works," she writes, "to keep them separate feels like dismemberment. Most of the works in Abstract Now […]
Renoir: Everyday Eternity
Gael Mooney reflects on an exhibition of Late Renoir paintings at Hammer Galleries: "The works in this show possess a quiet and intimate beauty that contrasts with the fleeting gaiety of Renoir’s Impressionist period for which he is best known." In recent years, Mooney points out, Renoir's late work has re-emerged as a significant influence […]
Hard-Edgeness in American Abstract Painting
Robert C. Morgan notes a re-emergence of hard-edge abstract painting. "Based on a few recent exhibitions in New York," he writes, "it would appear that traces of both the large and the modest variety of this hard-edge approach to painting are reappearing in a variety of forms." Morgan looks at work from artists such as […]
Beauty & Olympia
Maureen Mullarkey reviews Beauty by Roger Scruton, a book that "advances a lively series of valuable observations combined with provocative assertions that make spirited table talk." Mullarkey muses on a passage from the book about Manet's Olympia: "Scruton’s emphasis on her self-possession and the subtle ambience of commercial transaction is wonderfully captured in few words."
On the Ground with Cezanne
Kyle Gallup writes about Cézanne's Card Players on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through May 8, 2011. Gallup writes: "Viewing 'Cezanne’s Card Players' exhibit currently at the Metropolitan Museum was like visiting with a dear friend. The show renewed my thinking about Cezanne’s painting, and… I appreciate anew the totality of his vision"
Painters & Poets at Tibor de Nagy
Thomas Devaney visits the exhibition Tibor de Nagy Gallery Painter and Poets on view through March 5, 2011. Tibor de Nagy gallery played a central role in the development of New York School poetry by commissioning significant collaborations between poets and gallery painters including: Helen Frankenthaler, Alfred Leslie, Trevor Winkfield, Nell Blaine, Joe Brainard, Grace […]
Passion in Venice
Laura Gilbert reviews the Museum of Biblical Art's Passion in Venice. Her post, entitled "Great Art in Curatorial Purgatory," deems the show a curatorial "mess," but the paintings, prints, and other works on view well worth a visit. "Although the show disappoints, the art doesn't" she writes. That's a pretty ringing endorsement.
Spatial Investigations: Anne Lindberg
Artist Kate Beck blogs about the work of Anne Lindberg. In Lindberg's installations staples and Egyptian cottom thread become atmospheric masses of color. Beck writes: "Anne Lindberg procures line as an element configuring real space, making it universally sensible, plausible — as drawing is." As in painting, these installations live through a convincing interplay between […]
Gainsborough and the Modern Woman
Christopher Knight reviews Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman at the San Diego Museum of Art through May 1, 2011. Knight writes: "Gainsborough's women might finally be more fully revealing of his ultimate achievement…" In addtition to a "visually tactile painterly texture [his paintings express] …solidarity with these women."
James Hyde: Interview
Daniel Gerwin interviews artists James Hyde on the occasion of his exhibition WORD! The Stuart Davis Group at Jolie Laide Gallery in Philadelphia. The works incorporate fragments of Stuart Davis paintings digitally printed, collaged painted over with fragments of words. In the interview Hyde explains: "I didn’t want the language to have a lot of […]
French Pictorial Art in 1500
Maureen Mullarkey previews France 1500: The Pictorial Arts at the Dawn of the Renaissance at Joel Oppenheimer Gallery in Chicago. The show will run from April 12 to April 23 2011. Mullarkey writes that this kind of exhibition reminds one how important it is to learn from past art: "Monitoring one’s contemporaries has certain career […]
On Chicago Abstraction
John Neff examines at abstraction in Chicago. He writes: "For a long time, Chicago art has been strongly identified with an eccentric and often grotesquely or humorously distorted variety of figure painting… but it’s not the whole story of painting in Chicago." Neff looks at the work of several painters including Robert Nickle, Holt Quentel, […]
Katharina Grosse at MASS MoCA
Gorgeous installation views of Katharina Grosse's exhibition One Floor Up More Highly at MASS MoCA on view through October 31, 2011. The monumental works which extend the scale of "painting" and push the limits of the what constitutes support and ground.
We Look on Colored Surfaces
In New York, in February 2011, the diverse possibilities of painting are alive and filling the galleries and museums.
Louis Finkelstein: Painterly Observation
In another must read blog post Larry Groff pairs great images of Louis Finkelstein's paintings with writings about the artist including a conversation between Harry Naar and Finkelstein that is not to be missed. An excerpt: Finkelstein: "The possible variations built into the nature of painting are, in a way, parallel to the way recombining […]
Don Dudley: Lost Opportunities
Saul Ostrow looks at a group of works by painter Don Dudley made in Los Angeles before the artist moved east to New York. The works were part of the recent exhibition Don Dudley at I-20 Gallery, the artist's first solo show in 25 years. Ostrow puts Dudley's works of the mid 60's in context […]
Sean Scully: Creative Innocence
Sharon Butler directs our attention to a new video about painter Sean Scully. In the video Scully speaks about maintaining creative innocence – how searching rather than "plotting" is essential to making art. "This video is fascinating…" Butler writes "…If you're interested in other painters' process, don't miss the part toward the end where Scully […]
Picasso, Music & Negative Space
Andrea Kirsch reports on Picasso Guitars 1912-1914, on view at MOMA through June 6, 2011. Kirsch writes "like abstraction, for which music was both inspiration and justification, Picasso’s interest in negative space grew out of thinking about music; not musical form and language, but music production." In addition to thinking about the production of sound […]
Pat Steir at Cheim & Read
Steven Alexander dicusses Pat Steir's exhibition Winter Paintings at Cheim & Read through March 26, 2011. Alexander writes "One's initial reaction to these works is inevitably a sense of awe — at the sheer beauty and sensuality of the images, at the massive scale and the technical impossibility of Steir's control over her process." The […]
George Condo’s Schtick
Sharon Butler provides a great round up of the copious press surrounding George Condo's much discussed, mostly venerated exhibition George Condo: Mental States, at The New Museum through May 8, 2011. Butler comments: "When I saw the show I was struck by Condo's painterly brio, but I haven't given the paintings much thought since, except […]