Alberto Burri Makes a Picture
Blog post revisiting Milton Gendel's 1954 article “Burri Makes a Picture,” republished on the occasion of the exhibition Alberto Burri: The Trauma of Painting at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, on view October 9, 2015 – January 6, 2016. Gendel observed: "Burri’s paintings are seen most clearly as manipulated objects while he is working on […]
John Pollard: Studio Visit
In a new installment of the Brancaster Chronicles, Anthony Smart, Anne Smart, Robin Greenwood, Sarah Greenwood, John Bunker, Alexandra Harley, Patrick Jones, Helga Joergens-Lendrum, David Lendrum, Mark Skilton, Hilde Skilton, and Noela James discuss a group of recent works by painter John Pollard.
Jacqueline Humphries on Her Recent Work
Andrew Russeth profiles painter Jacqueline Humphries whose work will be on view at the Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans from November 19, 2015 – February 28, 2016. Russeth writes: "Humphries’s work almost always feels like it could only be made right now, but her newest paintings are blanketed with especially contemporary signs: emoticons. (Another […]
Alex Kanevsky: Interview
John Seed interviews painter Alex Kanevsky on the occasion of his exhibition Unstable Equilibrium at Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, on view through October 31, 2015. Kanevsky remarks: "At the moment I am interested in making paintings that are a form of unstable equilibrium. You come to see a painting. Everything appears stable and harmonious […]
Seen in New York, September 2015
Paul Corio reviews a selection of exhibitions, including shows of work by Dana Schultz, Gabriele Evertz, Jaqueline Cedar, Nate Ethier, Stephen Maine, Terry Haggerty, and others.
Alfred Leslie: Interview
Phong Bui interviews painter Alfred Leslie on the occasion of the exhibition Alfred Leslie: 10 Men at Janet Borden Gallery, New York, on view through November 25, 2015. Leslie comments: "I always felt people are open if you can catch them off guard. You can get them to see something that they may not have […]
Susan Jane Walp @ Tibor de Nagy
John Goodrich reviews Susan Jane Walp: Paintings on Paper at Tibor de Nagy, New York, on view through October 17, 2015. Goodrich concludes that "the best paintings [in the exhibition] confirm what we may have already suspected of Walp’s work, which is that its power derives not from a strategy of centered, symmetric arrays but […]
Dominic Beattie @ Fold Gallery
Laurence Noga reviews the recent exhibition Dominic Beattie: Studio at Fold Gallery. Noga writes: "Prolific and compelling, Beattie’s approach in sourcing easily-available materials pays dividends in these geometric dissolutions. The anti-digital aesthetic is combined with shimmering movement. The mechanics of the picture-making, and the way he manipulates the space, are reminiscent of the Cubists’ approach, […]
Lowry by the Sea
Anna McNay reviews Lowry by the Sea at Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, on view through November 1, 2015. McNay writes: "Mention LS Lowry (1887-1976) and most people will picture grim, industrial cityscapes from Britain’s north-west, with smoke-belching factories; men bent nearly double, hastening along crowded pavements; grey drizzle; and children playing in the street. But Lowry […]
Systems that Dazzle
Joanne Mattera blogs about two New York shows: Gabriel Evertz: The Gray Question at Minus Space (through Oct 31) and 1960s Hard Edge Painting: DC, LA, NY at D. Wigmore Fine Art (through Nov 6). About Evertz's paintings Mattera observes: "while the chromatic stripes are rigorously parallel, the grays are painted at an angle. That […]
The Unsettled Legacy of John Singer Sargent
Peter Malone reviews Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view through October 4, 2015. Malone writes that the show "is an opportunity to reassess the relationship between Sargent’s skill and his decision to retain a fidelity to nature that was in the last decades of the […]
George Stubbs @ the Met
Mario Naves reviews Paintings by George Stubbs from the Yale Center for British Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view through November 8, 2015. Naves writes: "The most unified picture [in the exhibition] is Newmarket Heath, with a Rubbing Down House (ca. 1765), in which figures of any sort are absent. […]
Bridget Riley: Learning From Seurat
Emily Spicer reviews Bridget Riley: Learning from Seurat at The Courtauld Gallery, London, on view through January 17, 2016. Spicer writes: "On leaving art school, Riley was at somewhat of a loss. She had had an academic training in drawing, but felt that she knew nothing about colour. Until, that is, she discovered Seurat, and […]
Jay DeFeo: Alter Ego
Lani Asher reviews Jay DeFeo: Alter Ego at Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, on view through October 10, 2015. Asher writes: "DeFeo’s metaphysical but concrete art functions in much the same way: the act of mirroring, or flipping images over and around, of changing black to white, of cutting through the surface of something, of changing […]
Anne Truitt: Sumptuous Color
Altoon Sultan blogs about Anne Truitt in Japan at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, on view through October 24, 2015. Sultan writes: "It is a great visual pleasure to see a show in which color is so saturated and rich that it transcends paint's mere physicality… In the first room of the gallery were five […]
Piet Mondrian: The Line
A. Zlotowitz reviews Piet Mondrian: The Line at Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, on view until December 6th, 2015. Zlotowitz writes that the show "[takes] the artist’s creative evolution and exposition as its starting point. Initially starting his career painting in the Impressionist style, this exhibition of Mondrian’s work dedicates itself to showcasing the artist’s career […]
Kyle Staver & the Cult of Painting
Franklin Einspruch reviews Kyle Staver: Tall Tales at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York, on view through October 11, 2015. Einspruch writes: "Staver has long felt compelled to retell her family’s stories, iconically in their way, but not so much as to defeat all the specifics… In her more recent paintings, mythology supplies enough […]
Lesley Vance: Interview
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Lesley Vance. Vance comments: "I think of this plastic paint space almost like a Möbius strip. I like the idea that the forms in my paintings might unwind, but you can’t trace the steps back. I want it to be a singular boom. It is an object that exists, and you […]
David Diao: Interview
Matthew Deleget interviews painter David Diao. A retrospective of Diao's work is on view at The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing through November 15, 2015. Diao remarks: "The best thing about art-making is that you plan everything, but once the work is done, you're surprised by accidents that make it more interesting."