Barnett Newman: Total Surface
David Ebony interviews Michelle White and Bradford A. Epley, co-curators of the recent exhibition Barnett Newman: The Late Work at The Menil Collection, Houston. White comments: "In the late works, compared with the better known earlier paintings—of the 1940s and ‘50s—changes in the way he treated the painted surface are readily apparent. A lot of […]
Conversation with Jane Culp
Larry Groff interviews painter Jane Culp. Culp comments: "To me, Cezanne made landscape painting into real golem painting. Before that landscapes were usually the background of things. I studied the 17th century Dutch landscape painters for a while along with Cezanne. Dutch paintings are wonderfully dramatic in the light and shadows, the use of the […]
Lothar Götz: Interview
Hannah Hughes interviews artist Lothar Götz. Götz comments: "The works are all about tension or discrepancy between the reality of the space and an abstract idea. I see the space, and I design this abstract painting in my studio, which then changes again completely because of the reality of the space. The moment it’s painted […]
The Mysteries of Whistler’s Mother
Peter Schjeldahl considers James Abbott McNeill Whistler's Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (Portrait of the Artist's Mother), 1871, currently on loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris to the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. Schjeldahl writes: "The painting represents the peak of Whistler’s radical method of modulating tones of single colors. The paint […]
Jennifer Wynne Reeves @ CB1
Miyoshi Barosh considers the work of Jennifer Wynne Reeves, recently on view in the exhibition A Bolt of Soul: Grooved Foreheads and Dog Teeth at CB1 Gallery, Los Angeles. Barosh observes: "In Soul Bolt, Reeves’s immaterial figures present different degrees of psychological anguish and absurdity. The diminutive beings, cobbled together accumulations of painted debris, play […]
Deborah Remington: The Dream Life of Forms
John Mendelsohn reviews Deborah Remington 1963-1983 at Wallspace, New York, on view through August 7, 2015. Mendelsohn writes that Remington's paintings are works in which "purely visual elements feel both tangible and psychologically compelling. She paints hieratic forms that suggest machined devices, architectural diagrams, interiors of the body, shields, and emblems. In their ambiguity, the […]
William Bailey & Donald Judd
Martin Mugar considers the paintings of William Bailey. Mugar writes that Bailey's work is "realist but does not partake of the history of realism from Caravaggio on since it is not grounded in an exploration of the perceptual base of most realism. It therefore does not have the sort of optical impact of something freshly […]
Richard Diebenkorn: Sketchbooks Revealed
Allison Meier previews Richard Diebenkorn: The Sketchbooks Revealed at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. The show will be on view from September 9 to February 8, 2016. Meier quotes the Cantor Arts Center's Alison Gass: “The books are filled with stunningly gestural sketches of bits and pieces of daily life, both mundane capturing of […]
Mondrian’s Paintings & Their Pulsating Intricacy
Roberta Smith considers the paintings of Piet Mondrian. Smith begins: "The longer I look at Mondrian’s paintings, the more I see in them. This applies to lots of art, but I think Mondrian built real time into his paintings. They unfold with unusual deliberation in a semblance of symmetry and order that is actually precarious, […]
Charles Garabedian: Interview
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Charles Garabedian. Recalling working on one painting Garabedian comments: "One evening I started painting a standing figure. I got involved and it was just killing me. I was having so much trouble with it. I was working and working and finally after many hours, I said, 'Forget it.' I left and […]
Ashlynn Browning: Interview
Shana Dumont Garr interviews painter Ashlynn Browning. Browing comments: "There is never a plan or study for a piece in the beginning. That is just not a system that works for me. I’ve tried it, but I quickly realized that intuition, instinct, accident—whatever you want to call it—is the main driver of my work and […]
Stanley Whitney: Structured by Color
David Rhodes reviews works by Stanley Whitney at Karma Gallery, New York (closed) and Stanley Whitney: Dance the Orange at The Studio Museum Harlem (through October 25, 2015). Rhodes writes: "In their rows of rounded shapes and loosely brushed compartments Whitney’s earlier paintings resemble shelves or cavities, reading like sections of a catacomb or stacked fruit. Stacking is […]
Contemporaneity: William Gear
Robin Greenwood reviews several shows of work by William Gear: William Gear: the Painter that Time Forgot at the Towner Gallery Eastbourne (through September 27) and at City Art Centre, Edinburgh, 24 (through February 14), A Radical View: William Gear as Curator 1958 -1964 at the Towner (through August 31), and William Gear: A Centenary […]
Van Gogh: Beyond the Myth
Peter Walsh reviews Van Gogh and Nature at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, on view through September 13, 2015. Walsh writes that "the elimination of the haunted self portraits, including the icon images of the artist with a bandaged ear, shifts attention away from van Gogh the half-savage tortured soul and towards van Gogh […]
Elizabeth Livingston @ Lodge Gallery
Adrian Margaret Brune blogs about Elizabeth Livingston: Night Fell at Lodge Gallery, New York, on view through September 6, 2015. Brune quotes Jason Patrick Voegele of the Lodge Gallery: "Liz takes great pleasure in peeling back veneers of suburban order to capture intimate moments … Her most recent body of work evokes all the same […]
Peter Lanyon’s Gliding Paintings
Maev Kennedy previews Soaring Flight: Peter Lanyon’s Gliding Paintings which will be on view at the Courtauld Gallery, London from October 15, 2015 – 17 January 17, 2016. Kennedy notes that the show will feature "15 major paintings … that show the artist’s attempts to capture the bright blue sky and light and the harsh lines […]
Svenja Deininger
Steven Alexander blogs about paintings by Svenja Deininger. Alexander writes: "One of the most striking aspects of Deininger's work is her sensitivity to the nuances of her materials — her ability to achieve a wonderful variety of surface and edge within a highly reduced vocabulary. She does this with utmost subtlety, employing soft color contrasts, […]
On Seeing Andrew Forge & Hearing Morton Feldman
David Carbone makes a connection between a recent experience viewing paintings by Andrew Forge (at Betty Cuningham Gallery) and past experiences listening to compositions by Morton Feldman. Carbone concludes: "Both Feldman’s and Forge’s works achieve lucid-dream states. In my experience, it was the especially large scale, whether spatial or durational, that produced profoundly transporting totalities. […]
Luc Tuymans: A Necessary Realism
Ben Eastham interviews painter Luc Tuymans. Eastham writes: "Tuymans describes an approach defined by the artist’s decision to take inspiration from the world around him and his place in it. This is ‘a realism born of necessity. This country has been overrun by so many foreign powers that we don’t have time to be Romantic.’ […]
Memories of Philip Guston
Caren Canier remembers her time studying with Philip Guston as a graduate student at Boston University. "In response to the “Guston Effect”, I have decided to chronicle my memories of Guston as a teacher to reflect on the way in which he influenced a painter whose work does not resemble his own, and in doing […]