Nicole Eisenman & David Humphrey
Nicole Eisenman and David Humphrey discuss their approaches to narrative and figurative painting. Eisenman: "My thing is that I’m really into narrative. It’s not about the figure—it’s the storytelling that I’m stuck on. The meat and bones in my practice is somewhere between texture and storytelling." Humphrey: "Something comes alive right when you’re trying to […]
Elmer Bischoff: Figurative Paintings
John Yau reviews Elmer Bischoff: Figurative Paintings continues at the George Adams Gallery, New York, on view through August 30, 2015. Yau writes: "What I find interesting is that Bischoff, by drawing inspiration from late 19th century symbolism and Postimpressionism, seems to be going backward, instead of forward. The largest figure in “Playground” is in […]
Mary Heilmann & David Reed: Interview
Alex Bacon interviews painters Mary Heilmann and David Reed whose exhibition Two By Two is on view at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, through October 11, 2015. Reed: "Painting is really good at absorbing the world around it. This used to be thought of as a weakness and people thought that painting had […]
Lecia Dole-Recio: Interview
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Lecia Dole-Recio. Speaking about her process, Dole-Recio comments: "I start off with remnants. The remnants are organized according to material and scale and shape. There is vellum, cardboard, and paper cut from other pieces. I have boxes of triangles; I have boxes of stencils of the triangles – so there are […]
Guy Yanai: Ancienne Rive
Celeste Moure blogs about the exhibition Guy Yanai: Ancienne Rive at Ameringer McEnery Yohe, New York, on view through August 14, 2015. Moure writes: "Yanai’s pieces look pixelated, in keeping with the digital age in which they were created — and the artist doesn’t shy away from mentioning computers, Photoshop and Instagram in conversation — […]
Porfirio DiDonna @ Elizabeth Harris
Addison Parks writes about Porfirio DiDonna: Paintings from the 1970s at Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York, on view through July 31, 2015. Parks writes: "According to John Baker, DiDonna's worthy biographer, this man was a religious artist. Indeed, Baker has staked his career on this uncomfortable propostion. That in the age of man's great intellectual […]
Manierre Dawson: Engineering Abstraction
Janet Tyson reviews Manierre Dawson: Engineering Abstraction at the Muskegon Museum of Art, on view through August 9, 2015. Tyson writes: "although not a household name, [Dawson] increasingly recognized as the first American artist to work in a completely abstract mode. What’s especially significant about him, though, is that he made his breakthrough to non-objective […]
Judith Linhares on Marsden Hartley
Judith Linhares writes about Marsden Hartley's painting Madawaska—Acadian Light-Heavy (1940). Linhares observes: "The almond shaped eyes are outlined with light. This is a handsome face but the body is what Hartley wants me to focus on. His body in relationship to the frame of the painting leaves spaces that are small in relation to the […]
Susan Roth @ the Everson Museum
Arthur Whitman reviews Handmade: The Art of Susan Roth at the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, on view through August 30, 2015. Whitman writes: "Roth’s paintings are beautifully exuberant, filled with color and movement and a sense of space that pulls you in with force… Mindful of tradition, she is also an innovator. Her work […]
Agnes Martin: Luminous Distillations
Kelly Grovier reviews Agnes Martin at Tate Modern, on view through October 11, 2015. Grovier writes: "Ghosting among these diaphanous canvases, room by room, one’s eyes are slowly heightened to the uplifting paradox that undergirds Martin’s artistic conviction: apprehension of life’s beauty and its intensities does not require a retinal mimicry of physical forms in the […]
Joan Miró @ Nahmad Contemporary
D. Creahan reviews Joan Miró: Oiseaux dans L’Espace at Nahmad Contemporary, New York, on view through July 18, 2015. Crehan writes: "Taking the artist’s 1947 visit to the United States as its starting point, the show reflects both Miró’s irrepressible energy and the return of his own stylistic innovations in the work of his American […]
Andrea del Sarto @ The Getty
William Poundstone blogs about Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles, on view through September 13, 2015. Poundstone writes that the show "presents about a quarter of Andrea’s known 180 drawings… The Getty show isn’t a painting exhibition per se, but its four paintings must be the most […]
David Aronson (1923–2015)
Cate McQuaid writes an obituary for Boston Expressionist painter David Aronson (1923–2015). McQuaid notes that: "Mr. Aronson’s achingly poetic, often mystical work is in the collections of numerous museums around the world … He created the visual arts program at Boston University, where he taught from 1955 until 1989, and he established the Boston University […]
Sean Scully @ Santa Cecília Monastery
Rob Sharp reviews a new, permanent installation of works by Sean Scully at the monastery of Santa Cecília, Montserrat, Spain Sharp observes that "22 of [Scully's] artworks, including six abstract canvases with his signature bands and blocks of color, energize a space that is more than 1,000 years old… As well as advising the restoration team […]
Washington Color School Reconsidered
Joanne Mattera blogs about Washington Color Painters Reconsidered at Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, on view through August 1, 2015. Mattera notes that: "Taking advantage of the newly available acrylic paints at that time, [the Washington Color artists] created geometric compositions, often applying the pigmented polymer directly into unprimed canvas. Their coolly measured work was […]
Stanley Whitney @ Karma
John Yau reviews works by Stanley Whitney at Karma Gallery, New York, on view through July 26, 2015. Yau writes: "Drawing and mark making are what all of the artist’s works, whatever their size, share… Working within the self-imposed restraint of a loosely defined structure, Whitney draws different colored lines within a rounded abstract shape. […]
Cy Twombly: Fifty Years of Works on Paper
Harriet Thorpe reviews Cy Twombly: Fifty Years of Works on Paper at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, on view through August 30, 2015. Thorpe writes: "The works in the final room are a combination of styles accumulated throughout the exhibition; drawing, collage and painting on paper. We see the emergence of Twombly’s celebrated […]
Tim Doud on Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Tim Doud writes about Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's painting At the Moulin Rouge 1892 – 1895 in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Doud writes: "My initial interests in At the Moulin Rouge were the large figure with an under-lit greenish face in the lower right hand corner of the painting and the dynamic […]
Abstraction: A Visual Language
Alan Pocaro reviews Abstraction: A Visual Language at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, on view through July 31, 2015. The show features works by Samantha Bittman, Kika Karadi, Linnéa Spransy, Raychael Stine, Jackie Saccoccio, Nancy Haynes, Magalie Guérin Pocaro notes: "Aside from the obvious aesthetic concerns of making objects of lasting beauty, the central problem of […]
Greg Bogin: Interview
Ridley Howard interviews painter Greg Bogin whose show Sunny Disposition is on view at Marlborough Chelsea, New York through July 31, 2015. Bogin comments: "I have a long-standing interest in logos and signage and their ability to communicate a wide range of information in a compact image. By coopting parts of that language I am […]