David Bomberg’s Profound Modernism
New York Review of Books
Fran Bigman reviews works by David Bomberg recently on view at the Ben Uri Gallery, London. Bigman writes: “Bomberg’s work, first deemed too radical by many established critics of the time, would later gain the reputation of being too conservative. Bomberg’s entire career can seem like a litany of failure. Labeled an “English Cubist” or […]
Monet & American Abstract Painting
Brooklyn Rail
Norman L Kleeblatt reviews The Water Lilies: American Abstract Painting and the Last (Later) Monet recently on view at the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris. Kleeblatt observes: “Monet’s late work, in particular his now exemplar Water Lilies, offered a new node on the modernist art historical road map that underwrote American Abstract Expressionism. With 20/20 hindsight, late Monet […]
Susan Lichtman: Interview
Savvy Painter Podcast
Antrese Wood talks to painter Susan Lichtman about her work. Discussing how she constructs a painting, Lichtman remarks: “The idea is that I’m trying … to eventually make a space where your eyes move from one thing and to another and to another, the way they do when you look through a space. You don’t […]
Patrick Heron @ Tate St. Ives
AbCrit
Geoff Hands reviews works by Patrick Heron at Tate St Ives, on view through September 30, 2018. Hands writes: “Heron’s work is often distinguished by its example of colour-shape dexterity and glorious visuality and a chronological display may not have accommodated or extended the potential impact of his achievements. The visual dynamism of the paintings, from all […]
Interview with Janice Nowinski
Janice Nowinski’s paintings are heavily worked, contemplative and dark while at the same time relaxed and optimistic in feeling.
Alfredo Gisholt: Interview
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Alfredo Gisholt whose work is on view at foma110, houston through October 24, 2018. Gisholt comments: “I find forms that I can move around and use to construct pictures. It’s a way to internalize something and reconfigure it, re-process it, and try to always get to another place. It’s like going […]
Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire
Studio International
Emily Spicer reviews Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire at the National Gallery, London, on view through October 7, 2018. Spicer writes that the show centers around Cole’s “The Course of Empire series, which charts the rise and fall of civilisation over five canvases – a cautionary tale of the dangers of imperial greed and corruption. These […]
Ellen Berkenblit: Interview
Sound & Vision Podcast
Brian Alfred talks to painter Ellen Berkenblit. Berkenblit comments: “If I let myself do what I naturally do physically, with a canvas, there are elements that are continuous. They’re like a diary, they keep morphing, they change. And they also become a springboard for paint and color mixing which is something that makes my heart […]
Aubrey Levinthal: Interview
Savvy Painter Podcast
Antrese Wood talks to painter Aubrey Levinthal. Levinthal remarks: “The answers are in the paint… [years ago] I always felt like a had to have an idea to go forward or I had to ‘know a lot’ … to make a painting and I think that creates blocks. Now, I either go and feed my eyes or […]
Marc Chagall & the People’s Art School
Hyperallergic
Wilson Tarbox reviews Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-garde in Vitebsk, 1918–1922, on view at the Centre Pompidou, Paris through July 16, 2018. The exhibition highlights the short lived People’s Art School, started in 1918 by Marc Chagall, and its demise that coincided with the “tension … between Chagall and his particular notion of revolutionary art — […]
Dona Nelson: In Conversation
Brooklyn Rail
Leeza Meksin interviews painter Dona Nelson whose exhibition Stand Alone Paintings is on view at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College through August 12, 2018. Nelson remarks: “I am interested when architecture does not dominate the experience of the paintings. Maybe one of the strategies of Pollock and Still making such big paintings was […]
Ewelina Bochenska: Interview
Painter's Bread
Michael Rutherford interviews painter Ewelina Bochenska. Bochenska remarks: “Painting is the most difficult thing there is, yet it is so magical and mysterious, almost miraculous. It is about liberation, freedom. Freedom from oneself and freedom from the known. It reminds me of a book by Jiddu Krishnamurti of the same title ‘Freedom from the Known’. […]
Back to the Future: Hao Liang at Gagosian
In elegant blends of old and new, Hao Liang’s show honors Chinese painting’s great landscape tradition as it abates its current “anxious relationship between the ancient and the modern”.
Etel Adnan: Interview
Apollo Magazine
Gabriel Coxhead interviews artist and poet Etel Adnan whose work is on view at the Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, through October 7, 2018. Adnan remarks: “If I were just a painter, maybe my work would have been different, more encompassing. But my writing is rather pessimistic, because of the angle of history I got involved with, being […]
Sean Downey: Interview
Maake Magazine
Beatrice Helman interviews painter Sean Downey. Downey comments: “I think of the imagery I use in pretty abstract terms. I think of recognizability of imagery, and narrative, as just additional dimensions of pictorial space—like light, color, value, etc. I have a pretty collage-minded approach to creating images; I’m constantly returning to the idea of taking […]
Eugène Delacroix @ The Louvre
Studio International
Joe Lloyd reviews Eugène Delacroix at The Louvre on view through July 23, 2018. Lloyd observes that “the importance Delacroix placed on colour as a vehicle for meaning runs through the Fauvists, Matisse and Picasso and abstract expressionism, right through to much present-day art. To this is joined Delacroix’s painterliness. Even the most harmoniously composed […]
Al Held in Paris: 1952-53
Brooklyn Rail
Tom McGlynn reviews Al Held in Paris: 1952-53 at Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York, on view through June 15, 2018. McGlynn begins: “Al Held moved to Paris in the early 1950s where he was part of a loose-knit expatriate community of American painters that included Joan Mitchell and Sam Francis. Mitchell, Francis and Held all […]
Joyce Pensato: Interview
Hyperallergic
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Joyce Pensato. Pensato comments: “I have to look at something for the drawing and the structure … What I also do is mix up parts to throw off expectations. You’re not quite sure what you’re looking at. I sometimes use Felix the Cat’s eyes, a clown’s mouth, and Mickey’s ears. I have […]
John Elderfield on Cézanne’s Portraits
Brooklyn Rail
Phong Bui interviews John Elderfield, curator of Cézanne Portraits on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. through July 8, 2018. Elderfield comments: “Cézanne records a face without interpreting. Of course, we will find ourselves interpreting. We do so when we look at the face of someone one on the subway. But […]
Tomma Abts @ the Serpentine Gallery
The Guardian
Adrian Searle reviews works by Tomma Abts at the Serpentine Gallery, London, on view through September 9, 2018. Searle writes: “Someone once said Abts’ work reminded them of wallpaper designs from East Germany. The paintings flirt with a kind of datedness. They do not quite belong to their moment. They are hard to place. This is […]