Matisse: Shaped Color
Altoon Sultan blogs about Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs at MoMA, New York, on view through February 8, 2015. Sultan writes that the show is "an apotheosis of Matisse's work with color and line. Each shape is bounded by fluid lines, each shape carries strong color, and they play with each other across a surface, abutting, overlapping, […]
Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World
Brian Dupont reviews The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, on view through April 5, 2015. The show features works by works by Richard Aldrich, Joe Bradley, Kerstin Brätsch, Matt Connors, Michaela Eichwald, Nicole Eisenman, Mark Grotjahn, Charline von Heyl, Rashid Johnson, Julie Mehretu, […]
Dennis Congdon on La Pittura di Giardino
Dennis Congdon considers La Pittura di Giardino (The Garden Fresco) in the Villa di Livia. Congdon notes: "I moved slowly, but in that first walk around the Casa di Livia fresco garden room I remember I never stopped. My excitement was too much, not allowing me to stop or study a single spot, but my […]
Richard Estes’ Realism
August Kleinzahler reviews Richard Estes’ Realism at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, on view through February 8, 2015. Kleinzahler writes: "Estes is identified with the photorealist school of painting. With their glossy, often hard finish, an almost enamelled quality, and photographic degree of verisimilitude, his work looks at home in that context. But it might […]
Alan Shields @ The Parrish Art Museum
Anne Sherwood Pundyk reviews Alan Shields: In Motion at The Parrish Art Museum, on view through January 19, 2015. Pundyk writes: "The aspects of Shields’s work that may look dated are the same qualities that fuel its relevance. Look at any current political debate and you’ll find issues germane to his thinking: climate change, global […]
Katharina Grosse: psychylustro
Dushko Petrovich considers Katharina Grosse's psychylustro, a public painting installation on the Northeast Rail Corridor between 30th Street Station and North Philadelphia Station, Philadelphia, commissioned by the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and curated by Elizabeth Thomas. Petrovich writes: "For passengers traveling south on Amtrak from New York or points farther north, the experience […]
The Picasso Variations
Barry Schwabsky reviews works by Picasso in three exhibitions: Picasso and Jacqueline: The Evolution of Style at Pace Gallery (closed), Picasso and the Camera at Gagosian Gallery (closed) and Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (through February 16, 2015). Considering Picasso's variations after Delacroix, Schwabsky writes: "With the series […]
Roland Reiss: Exploring Spatial Depth
An essay by Lita Barrie on the Floral paintings of Roland Reiss from the forthcoming monograph Roland Reiss: Painting & Sculpture (2014, Grand Central Press/CSU Fullerton). Barrie writes: "In the Floral Paintings, Reiss uses the flowers as a scaffold to create in-between spaces where surprising things can happen. The flowers float in the center of these […]
Marlene Dumas: The Image As Burden
Rachel Cooke profiles painter Marlene Dumas on the occasion of her retrospective The Image As Burden which will be on view at Tate Modern from February 5 – May 10, 2015. Cooke writes: "Early on, [Dumas] worked in collage as well as paint: The Image As Burden includes several examples… By the mid-80s, however, she’d given […]
Zachary Keeting: Backstory
As part of the Backstory series, Zachary Keeting reflects on his work. Zachary Keeting & Anahita Vossoughi: Rockless Volume is on view at Fred Giampietro Gallery, New Haven through February 21, 2015. Keeting writes: "The surfaces [of the paintings] are now riddled with overt gesture, yet they’re still built slowly. I punch, scrape, shake, blot, […]
Eric Holzman @ Lori Bookstein
Steven Alexander blogs about Eric Holzman: Small Paintings at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York, on view through February 07, 2015. Alexander writes: "While we might call these works landscape paintings, I would say that they are first and foremost paintings, that take elements of landscape as their subject or starting point… particularly the smallest […]
Margaret McCann: Interview
Larry Groff and Matthew Mattingly interview painter Margaret McCann about her work. McCann also discusses The Figure, a new book she edited, published by Skira/Rizzoli. McCann notes that "Ideally, [painting is] 'two steps forward, one step back' a forward progression. Textures build up richly this way… My compositional spaces are shaped around my experience looking […]
Refiguring the 50s
Anna McNay reviews Refiguring the 50s at Ben Uri Gallery, London, on view through February 22, 2015. The show features works by Eva Frankfurther, Joan Eardley, Josef Herman, LS Lowry, and Sheila Fell. McNay writes: "Each [painter] is distinctive in his or her style, but a common interest in society, working people as subject matter […]
V.S. Gaitonde @ the Guggenheim
Andrea Kirsh reviews V. S. Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life at Guggenheim Museum, New York, on view through February 11, 2015. Kirsh writes that seeing the show is "imperative for anyone wishing to engage with modern, non-Western art of the 1960s–1990s. Beyond that, it offers an intensely rich vision of the possibilities of […]
Matthew Craig @ Simon Gallery
Dona Nelson reviews a recent exhibition of paintings by Matthew Craig at Simon Gallery, New Jersey. Nelson writes: "Craig is extremely intentional in regard to all of the physical decisions that go into making his paintings. The 20×22 inch format stubbornly resists any kind of illusionistic reading. The thick stretchers feature a frank bedsheet fold […]
Delacroix: Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi
Christopher Knight reviews Delacroix's Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), on view through February 15, 2015. Knight writes: "They don't make paintings like 'Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi' anymore. The slow, ruminative medium of oil paint on canvas has pretty much had it as the […]
Brice Marden: Interview
Interview Magazine
Mirabelle Marden interviews her father, painter Brice Marden, about his work and career. Brice Marden comments: “My work has always been involved with nature, no matter how abstract. Sometimes it’s more formal and less involved with the real world. But there’s always been some sort of involvement with nature… Western art has a certain relationship […]
Mamma Andersson @ David Zwirner
Dan Piepenbring blogs about the exhibition Mamma Andersson: Behind the Curtain at David Zwirner Gallery, New York, on view from January 8 – February 14, 2015. Piepenbring writes that Andersson "paints with a muted palette—she tends to draw from old photographs and films, theater sets, and well-preserved interiors. There’s a look-but-don’t-touch quality to her subjects, […]
Cy Twombly: Treatise on the Veil
Stephen Maine reviews Cy Twombly: Treatise on the Veil at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, on view through January 25, 2015. Maine writes: "On loan to The Morgan Libraryfrom the Menil Collection … Cy Twombly’s Treatise on the Veil (Second Version) … is immersive, sensuous and pictorial. Roughly ten by 33 feet, it […]
Anoka Faruqee on Bridget Riley
Anoka Faruqee considers Bridget Riley's painting Cataract 3 (1967). Faruquee writes: "For me, this painting endures unlike more facile examples of Op Art, because, like a work of thoughtful science fiction, it uncannily compresses the past, present and future. Throughout her writing, Riley recalls the impact of specific perceptual memories. In this painting, one sees […]