Peter Lanyon’s Gliding Paintings
Sam Cornish reviews Soaring Flight: Peter Lanyon’s Gliding Paintings at The Courtauld Gallery, London, on view through January 17, 2016. Cornish writes: "In general, Lanyon’s realism is seen as an embodied one, concerned with the experience of a particular place at a particular time, in which artist and landscape are figured as completely bound up […]
Frank Stella @ The Whitney
Peter Schjeldahl reviews Frank Stella: A Retrospective at The Whitney Museum of Art, New York, on view through February 7, 2016. Schjeldahl writes that the show "will likely provoke varied opinions, on a scale from great to god-awful. The crowded installation of huge abstract paintings, reliefs, sculptures, and painting-sculpture hybrids, augmented by works on paper, […]
Gregory Amenoff on Pieter Bruegel
Painters on Paintings
Gregory Amenoff considers the cycle of seasons paintings by Pieter Bruegel. Amenoff writes: “In his Seasons cycle, Bruegel lifts much from [Joachim] Patinir structurally and stylistically, but he does something radical and distinct from his predecessor by animating his figures only according to the reality of the seasonal condition in which they appear. The characters […]
Jen Mazza: shudder // shutter
Jen Mazza writes about painting on the occasion of her show \ /\/\/\/\/\ /\\\\\\\\\///////////\ A Painting is a Machine at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, on view through December 5, 2015. Mazza notes: "The work of art should not become readily translatable: i.e., the stereotype, the thing produced, but should be the machine from […]
6 New York Shows
James Panero reviews Painting Is Not Doomed To Repeat Itself at Hollis Taggart Galleries, Checkered History: The Grid in Art & Life at Outpost Artists Resources (closed), Tempos: Selected Works by Elizabeth Gourlay, 2013–2015 at Fox Gallery (through Feb 13, 2016), Diphthong at the Shirley Fiterman Art Center, Todd Bienvenu: Exile on Bogart Street at […]
Svenja Deininger: Shape and Surface
Altoon Sultan blogs about Svenja Deininger: Untitled/Head at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, on view through November 14, 2015. Sultan writes that the show "is a deeply satisfying one: there is a sense of exploration, of expanding ideas; there is also a wonderful sensitivity to the weights of color and shape. Each of 12 paintings […]
Surface Tension @ Garis & Hahn
Andrea Zlotowitz reviews Surface Tension at Garis & Hahn, New York, on view through November 14, 2015. The show features works by Lala Abaddon, Jamie Powell, Sarah Sieradzki, and Rachael Wren. Zlotowitz writes: "Through the subtle hues of their palettes and the artworks' illusory textures, a cohesive vision emerges, connecting the four distinct bodies of […]
Robert Bordo in “Greater New York”
Sharon Butler blogs about the paintings of Robert Bordo, featured in the exhibition Greater New York at MoMA, PS1, on view through March 7, 2015. Butler writes: Set aside in their own room [at MoMA PS1], hung on white walls and carefully lit, the paintings walk the lines between painting and drawing, and representation and […]
Ying Li: Formal & Furious Landscapes
John Goodrich reviews Ying Li: Paintings at John Davis Gallery, Hudson, New York, on view through November 8, 2015. Goodrich observes that "what’s most remarkable about these paintings is the way they combine this indulgent technique with a respectful eye for traditional composition. Her paintings reflect the visual aspect of real scenes — landscapes in […]
Giacometti: Pure Presence
Martin Gayford reviews Giacometti: Pure Presence at the National Portrait Gallery, London, on view through January 10, 2016. Gayford writes: “Although the works in the exhibition are ostensibly portraits, they have little sense of individual personality, psychology or even appearance. The people seem more like everyman and everywoman, staring out. The subject is more, as […]
John Hoyland: Paintings 1964-1982
Emyr Williams reviews John Hoyland, Power Stations, Paintings 1964-1982 at Newport Street Gallery, London, on view through April 3, 2016. Williams writes: "Hoyland is a pictorial artist and 'in' the painting is a key phrase too. Although he admired the American abstract painters, he eschewed their more singular approaches, feeling it limiting structurally. Unlike Hoyland […]
Paul Klee @ Underdonk
Rob Colvin review the group show Paul Klee at Underdonk on view through November 1, 2015. The show features works by Peter Acheson, Britta Deardorff, Jared Deery, Lori Ellison, Amy Feldman, Glenn Goldberg, Brenda Goodman, J Grabowski, Loie Hollowell, Christopher Joy, Hein Koh, Jonathan Lasker, June Leaf, Dona Nelson, Carl Ostendarp, Kim Sloane, Joyce Robins, Jason Saager, […]
Frank Stella Since 1970
Blog post revisiting Philip Leider's 1978 profile of painter Frank Stella republished on the occasion of a retrospective of Stella's work at the Whitney Museum of Art, on view through Feb. 7, 2016. Leider, whose profile focuses specifically on Stella's work from the 1970s, notes: "Every artist of the better sort, wrote Thomas Mann, 'carries […]
Lennart Anderson: Order, Poise & Delight
Scott Noel and David Cohen remember Lennart Anderson (1928 – 2015). Noel writes: "Although the best paintings are summit achievements in their form, Anderson’s work functions as both a destination and a door. Certainly for painters of my generation the discovery of his pictures came as a completely unexpected recognition of visual eloquence and surprise […]
Martin Barré: Extreme Abstraction
Gwenaël Kerlidou considers the oeuvre of Martin Barré, comparing and contrasting his work to that of Frank Stella and Jasper Johns. Kerlidou observes that "Stella and Barré both reject illusionism and its implications of space deeper than the surface of the painting. Both also reject the seduction of the expressionist touch, advocating instead a neutral, […]
Marie Thibeault @ George Lawson
Sharon Butler blogs about Marie Thibeault: engineering at George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco, on view through November 14, 2015. Butler writes: "In these new paintings, [Thibeault's] focus has shifted to the uncertainty created by violent environmental upheaval and the individual's vulnerability in the face of powerful forces. The jangled, saturated color, buckling architectural forms, shifting […]
John Lees @ Betty Cuningham Gallery
James Kalm visits an exhibition of works by John Lees at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, on view through November 28, 2015. Kalm notes that: "This exhibition … is a welcome relief from a recent bombardment of 'Zombie Formalism' and 'Flipper Art'. Lees often lingers over these works for decades, providing his quotidian subjects with […]
Giorgio Morandi in the 1930s
Xico Greenwald considers the political history of Morandi's paintings from the 1930s on view at The Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA), New York, through June 25, 2016. Greenwald writes that "the myth of Morandi is that the artist kept a low profile as Fascism raged around him. Legend has it, the unassuming artist developed […]
Gregory Gillespie @ Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects
Thomas Micchelli reviews Gregory Gillespie: rorschaching at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York, on view through November 15, 2015. Micchelli writes: "Dispensing entirely with modernist emotional distancing, Gillespie’s most effective works go well beyond a mere horror of the flesh; in his own private netherworld, any act of intimacy — incarnated in his sensual, […]
Georgia Elrod: Studio Visit
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit the studio of painter Georgia Elrod. Elrod remarks her interest in examining and presenting an inside-out view of the body, "in a way that hopefully anybody can see and understand… then it becomes a poetic space." The press release for Elrod's 2014 exhibition at Novella Gallery notes that her […]