Jasper Johns, ‘Drawing Over’ at Castelli
It's the last weekend to see Jasper Johns Drawing Over at Castelli Gallery. Art Observed reports that Drawing Over is "an exhibition of Jasper Johns drawings from the last four decades at the Castelli Gallery – of which many pieces have never been exhibited … Chosen by the artist from across his lengthy career, the […]
Nassos Daphnis Dies at 96
Artist Nassos Daphnis died November 23, 2010 in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He was 96 years old. The New York Times writes that Daphnis was "a Greek-American artist who deployed brilliantly colored geometric forms in precise formal relationships to create nervous, dynamic paintings on a heroic scale." The Times also has a photo gallery of Daphnis' work.
Are Artists Bored by Their Work?
Art Historian and critic James Elkins ponders how and if boredom, fostered by today's skittish, impatient cultural environment, impacts today's artists. He writes "I'd like to pursue slow looking, and think about it as carefully as I think it deserves. One way to pursue this subject is to ask how long it took the artist […]
Budd Hopkins: Art, Life and UFO’s
Corey Armpriester interviews painter Bud Hopkins (b. 1931). Hopkins was a Cedar Tavern regular, Mark Rothko's lunch companion, and friend of Robert Motherwell. Hopkins is an abstract expressionist artist with works in "the permanent collections of MoMA, the Whitney Museum and the Guggenheim Museum." He is also "a pioneer in the field of UFO research […]
Franceso Clemete: A Private Geography
Art Observed post on Franceso Clemete's exhibition Private Geography. The exhibition "includes forty-four individual works created over the course of four years across four continents; the artist describes the exhibition as a reflection of his nomadic lifestyle." – through December 18, 2010 at Mary Boone.
Giovanni Bellini, Leonardo’s Equal
The Guardian's Jonathan Jones poses an interesting question: "In The Agony in the Garden, [Giovanni Bellini] attempted a true landscape 20 years before Leonardo's lauded sketch of the Arno river. Does that make him an innovator to rival Da Vinci?"
Rackstraw Downes’s Onsite Paintings
Klaus Ottmann, Phillips Collection Curator-at-Large, writes about Rackstraw Downes plein-air painting process on the occasion of the exhibition Rackstraw Downes: Onsite Paintings, 1972-2008. Ottman writes "One of the rare artists to have carried [plein-art painting] into the twenty-first century, is the English-born, Yale-educated painter Rackstraw Downes. Dividing his time between New York and Texas, Downes […]
Judith Godwin: Now We’re Ready
Walter Robinson reviews Judith Godwin, “Paintings 1954-2002,” at Spanierman Modern. He writes “Godwin’s canvases have a quality of rupture and brutality, too, that seems very contemporary. They shed the chains of what Hedda Sterne called the “logo” style, and resist that Ab-Ex period Zen design that has now turned into kitsch.”
Degas Drawings at the Morgan Library
Charley Parker posts about The Morgan Library's Degas exhibition that "features 20 beautiful drawings and two sketchbooks." In an earlier post about Degas Parker describes Degas’ pastels as "beautifully drawn, innovatively realized and striking in their graphic power." The exhibition is on view until January 23, 2011.
New Picassos? Too Good to be True
Painter Anne Karsten compares some of the "new" Picassos to some "verified" Picassos (found in the possession of electrician Pierre Le Guennec) and comes to the conclusion: "Perhaps some of the remaining 260 works are Picasso’s, but I don’t believe that all these other 11 pieces are his work. Here’s why."
Sitting Bull’s Drawings
Maureen Doallas' posts a fascinating video from American Public Media's OnBeing, "in which the Smithsonian ethnographer Candace Greene, collections and archives resource officer for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, offers her insightful commentary on 22 drawings or pictographs made by Sitting Bull." The drawings, "were created by Sitting Bull during his incarceration at […]
Jonathan Waters
Video interview with Painter/Sculptor Jonathan Waters about his paintings and wall pieces.
Studio Visit: Jonathan Waters
Sharon Butler gives a glimpse into the work of New Haven artist Jonathan Waters. Waters' work, Butler writes, "references 70s minimalism, but with a more humanistic, handmade, imperfect approach… to experience this large-scale work, the viewer must move in close and walk along the surface–as if listening for a very quiet, but extremely important, whisper."
Kimball First to Show Salvator Rosa
All Art News reports that the Kimbell Art Museum will present "the first major U.S. exhibition devoted to the work of Salvator Rosa (1615–1673), one of the boldest artists and personalities of 17th-century Italy, December 12, 2010 – March 27, 2011. Salvator Rosa: Bandits, Wilderness, and Magic surveys Rosa’s career with 36 of his best […]
Amy Ellingson
Lynette Haggard interviews San Francisco painter Amy Ellingson. Ellingson's work "exaggerates the dichotomy between the lightning-fast process of digital rendering and the painstaking method of execution through traditional oil and encaustic painting techniques. All of my imagery, whether geometrically intact or abstracted and chaotic, is comprised of a vocabulary of very simple forms that are […]
MOCA LA Removes Antiwar Mural
Culture Monster's Jori Finkel reports on MOCA Los Angeles' removal of artist Blu's antiwar mural which featured coffins draped in dollar bills.
Liubov Popova: Painting to Textile
In Tate Papers, Christina Lodder examines Russian painter Liubov Popova. The essay looks "at the circumstances surrounding Popova’s involvement with constructivism and her approach to fabric design. I shall also explore the ways in which her designs reflected and, indeed, sometimes continued the concerns that had been fundamental to her activity as a painter."
Imi Knoebel
Gallery of installation views of painter Imi Knoebel's exhibition "WHITE/BLACK" at Barbel Graesslin, Frankfurt (through December 23, 2010).
Mithila Painting
Charles Kessler writes about an exhibition of Mithila painting at the Pingry School in New Jersey. Kessler's decription: "Mithila (also known as Madhubani art for the large city in the region) refers to a style of Hindu art in the north-eastern region of India and parts of Nepal. It began at least as long ago […]
From the Cocoon: Larry Poons
Piri Halasz reviews Larry Poons—Radical Surface: 1985—1989 at Loretta Howard Gallery (through December 23, 2010) for Artcritical. Halasz discusses the environment Poons created while making the paintings "The paintings … were made in an old barn in upstate New York. They started out as an environment, with a long swathe of canvas wrapped around so […]