Rosemarie Beck’s The Tempest
Eric Sutphin considers painter Rosemarie Beck's artistic engagement with Shakespeare's The Tempest. Sutphin writes: "Within the complex social climate of the [The Tempest], Prospero is the artist who mediates material and concept. Throughout the play, he shifts from benevolent to tyrannical—he is both a loving father to Miranda, and the manipulative captor of Caliban and […]
Andrea Belag: Studio Visit
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit the studio of painter Andrea Belag. Belag remarks: "How important is it to be strictly abstract? That's something that's on my mind. These teeter towards something else and how much of that am I going to let in? … I'm suspending rules and beliefs right now to see how […]
Vigée Le Brun @ The Met
Mario Naves reviews the recent exhibition Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Naves writes: "Vigée Le Brun would never altogether shed a brittleness of affect—the conventionality of her settings is a nagging constant—but the painterly approach became more fluid and precise. Rubens was a pivotal […]
Tom Burckhardt @ Gregory Lind
David M. Roth reviews Tom Burckhardt: City Slang at Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, on view through May 27, 2016. Roth writes that "[Burckhardt's] off-kilter compositions, found in the moment of their creation, fully command the space they inhabit. Part of their strength rests with how the artist deploys strong and sometimes clashing colors… The […]
Justine Hill: Interview
Sharon Butler interviews painter Justine Hill whose exhibition They Just Behave Differently will be on view at Denny Gallery, New York from May 19 – June 30, 2016. Hill remarks: "I’ve been working on shaped canvases for about a year, playing with this idea and working on ways to break out of the rectangle. I […]
Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture
Xico Greenwald reviews Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture at the Frick Collection, New York, on view through June 5, 2016. Greenwald writes: " exhibit organizers here have gone to great lengths to point out van Dyck’s contribution to art history is his working method. Pairing paintings with preparatory drawings, van Dyck painted faces directly […]
Nathlie Provosty @ Nathalie Karg Gallery
David Cohen reviews Nathlie Provosty (the third ear) at Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York, on view through May 15, 2016. Cohen writes: "Process in these 'black' paintings hovers between deletion and accretion. The eye quickly becomes attuned to the survival of obscured, subcutaneous shapes and zones, and indeed colors, without compromising the surface’s serenely achieved […]
Maria Lassnig @ Tate Liverpool
Kathryn Hughes reviews Maria Lassnig at Tate Liverpool which will be on view from May 18 – September 18, 2016. Hughes writes: "Lassnig’s starting point may have been her gut feeling, but what she did with that feeling was always artistically knowing and intellectually nimble… Far from being whimsical or cute, Lassnig provides a succinct […]
Harmony Hammond: Interview
Clarity Haynes interviews painter Harmony Hammond whose work will be on view at Alexander Gray Associates, New York from May 19 through June 25, 2016. Haynes notes that "Hammond has had a pioneering impact on art, in particular through her insistence on feminist and queer content in abstract work." Hammond comments: "Most of my work […]
Will Barnet @ Alexandre Gallery
Peter Malone reviews Will Barnet: 1950s Works on Paper at Alexandre Gallery, New York, on view through May 27, 2016. "At first glance, the work on view at Alexandre seems a straightforward reiteration of Barnet’s lingering in the same ideographic territory that Motherwell, Gottlieb and others had moved on from by 1950. That he stayed […]
Michael Berryhill at KANSAS
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy talk with Michael Berryhill at his exhibition Something of a Feather at KANSAS Gallery, New York, on view through May 22, 2016. In the gallery press release, Chris Sharp writes of Berryhill's work: "The paintings of Michael Berryhill exist on their own terms, unequivocal, stark, structured, phosphorescent and protean. Granted, […]
Helen Lundeberg: Appreciation
Suzanne Muchnic writes about painter Helen Lundeberg. Helen Lundeberg: A Retrospective is on view at the Laguna Art Museum through May 30, 2016. Muchnic observes: "From the beginning to the end of her career, Lundeberg drew most of her subject matter from memory and imagination, rarely painting directly from models, studio set-ups, or nature. Yet all […]
Marcela Florido on Stanley Spencer
Marcela Florido considers Stanley Spencer's The Nativity (1912). Florido writes: "The stillness of the bulky figures immediately brought to mind old Italian masters from the 15th century – Fra Angelico, Ghirlandaio, above all Piero – but the earthy mid-tones that blend them into their background felt uniquely local to me. The unexpected apparition of arms, fences, […]
Munch & Expressionism
Lance Esplund reviews Munch and Expressionism at the Neue Galerie, New York, on view through June 13, 2016. Esplund writes: "… what’s unusual about this exhibition, which emphasizes the influence that Edvard Munch … and his German and Austrian contemporaries had on one another and the affinities they shared, is that its headliner often feels […]
Jane Irish @ Locks Gallery
Stan Mir reviews Jane Irish: A Rapid Whirling on the Heel continues at Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, on view through May 31, 2016. Mir writes: "The layering of East and West, and the sense of connection Irish has with [Edgar Alan] Poe’s Eureka, suggest that geographical boundaries and standardized notions of time are perhaps meaningless. She implies […]
Nicole Eisenman @ the New Museum
Peter Schjeldahl reviews Nicole Eisenman: Al-ugh-ories at the New Museum, New York, on view through June 26, 2016. Schjeldahl writes that "[Eisenman] paints narrative fantasies that look bumptiously jokey at first, but reveal worlds of nuanced thought and feeling. They must be judged in person; in reproduction they lose the masterly touch that is Eisenman’s […]
Richard Diebenkorn & Edward Hopper
Lawrence Gipe reviews Richard Diebenkorn: The Sketchbooks Revealed and Edward Hopper: New York Corner at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford through August 8, 2016. Gipe observes: "In a transition zone between the two shows, the curators … utilize a small suite of hitherto unseen works by the youthful Diebenkorn, who was clearly imitating his mentor. […]
Four NYC Painting Shows
James Panero reviews four New York painting shows: Amy Lincoln at Morgan Lehman Gallery (through May 7), Paul Resika: Recent Paintings at Lori Bookstein Fine Art (through June 4), Rob de Oude, Tilts and Pinwheels at DM Contemporary (closed), and Thornton Willis: Step Up at Elizabeth Harris Gallery (through May 7).
Amy Hill @ Front Room Gallery
Stephen Maine reviews Amy Hill: Young and Innocent at Front Room Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, on view through May 22, 2016. Maine writes that "Hill has developed a convincing, personal voice within this context of rampant quotation. Her current exhibition, “Young and Innocent,” features 16 modern-dress productions, in oil on canvas or wood, of those […]
Jules de Balincourt: Interview
Emily Spicer interviews painter Jules de Balincourt whose exhibition Stumbling Pioneers is on view at Victoria Miro Gallery, London through May 14, 2016. De Balincourt comments: "[My paintings are] like crossroads. They can go in either direction. It’s completely utopian how easily information can travel, how easily we can travel. But at the same time, […]