Constable @ the V&A
London Review of Books
Rosemary Hill reviews the exhibition Constable: The Making of a Master at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, on view through January 15, 2015. Hill writes: "The Hay Wain … recalls the pre-enclosure landscape of Constable’s childhood. Its setting, at noon, evokes a high point, a brief moment of stasis in the business of life or of […]
Goya: Order and Disorder
Franklin Einspruch reviews Goya: Order and Disorder at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, on view through January 19, 2015. Einspruch writes: "whatever Goya you hope to find, Goya the portraitist to nobility, Goya the satirist, Goya the mystic, Goya the moralist, Goya the recorder of history, Goya the painter to the Catholic Church, Goya […]
Cornelia Thomsen: Stripes and Structures
Robert C. Morgan reviews Cornelia Thomsen: Stripes and Structures at Leslie Feely Gallery, New York, on view through October 25, 2014. Morgan writes: "This highly original hard-edge painter and soft-edge draughtswoman has produced one of the more interesting exhibitions involving color, line, and form in the current enterprise of abstract painting. Her pictorial images, which […]
Chris Martin @ Anton Kern
James Kalm visits an exhibition of recent work by Chris Martin at Anton Kern Gallery, New York, on view through November 15, 2014. Kalm notes that the show "presents recent works, many completed over the summer. Color is pitched to an almost harsh level, and various materials, like tin foil and glitter, are employed to […]
Auden, Faulkner & Stanley Lewis
Thaddeus Radell reviews an exhibition of works by Stanley Lewis at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, on view through October 25, 2014. Radell writes: "Of more interest … than Lewis’ prowess in amassing … seething layers of details is the dynamics that he employs to exceed both the details and the marks themselves. In this respect, […]
John L. Moore: Studio Visit
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit the studio of painter John L. Moore. Writing about Moore's work in 2002, critic Lilly Wei noted: "New York artist John L. Moore continues to elaborate on his theme of mirrors and water in his recent paintings… There is an aspect of roughed-up Pop in his style, his sketchy, […]
Cathy Diamond: Interview
Valerie Brennan interviews painter Cathy Diamond. Diamond's work will be on view at Andre Zarre Gallery, New York, from November 11 – December 16, 2014. Diamond comments: "The line in art is the essential ingredient that inhabits my imagination. Forms can be branch-like, crazy-figurative hybrids, rocks, pillow-forms. Often they are unseen energy. The energy of […]
Rubens: Sensation & Sensuality
Julie Beckers reviews the exhibition Sensation and Sensuality: Rubens and his Legacy at BOZAR, The Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, on view through January 4, 2015. Beckers writes that "the much anticipated exhibition combines the 'sensational' – the forceful, loud, sometimes violent and barbaric scenes Rubens often created in the service of Catholic propaganda or […]
Arnold Mesches @ Life On Mars
Anthony Haden-Guest reviews Arnold Mesches: Next In Line: The FBI Series at Life On Mars Gallery, Bushwick, Brooklyn, on view through November 2, 2014. Haden-Guest writes that "Mesches used the Freedom of Information Act to get his FBI files in 1999. He learned that the FBI had opened a file on him when he was […]
Helen O’Leary: Ideas and Influences
Sharon Butler posts artist Helen O'Leary's ideas and influences behind her recent work on the occasion of The Geometry of Dirt, an exhibition of O'Leary's work Irish Arts Center, New York, on view from October 14 – January 5, 2014. In an artist statement, O'Leary writes that her work "delves into my own history as […]
John Walker @ Alexandre Gallery
Thomas Micchelli reviews John Walker: Recent Paintings at Alexandre Gallery, New York, on view through November 15, 2014. Micchelli writes that the show "features seven large pictures as well as numerous smaller ones, including more than a dozen compact oils made on discarded Bingo cards, which the artist found in the former grange hall that […]
Doppler Shift
Joanne Mattera photoblogs a walkthrough of Doppler Shift, a group show featuring 27 artists, curated by Mary Birmingham, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, on view through January 18, 2015. The press release notes that the "works in Doppler Shift explore the illusion of difference between two- and three-dimensional space… [The] exhibition examines the relationship […]
Munro Galloway: Belief System
Alexandra Nicolaides reviews Munro Galloway: Belief System at Soloway Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on view through October 19, 2014. Nicolaides writes that the show "includes works on canvas, drawings and books, with Galloway moving fluidly between different media. The canvases are oil and acrylic, inkjet prints, or some combination of both; the drawings layer collage, ink […]
Tomma Abts @ David Zwirner
Meredith Hoffheins reviews Tomma Abts at David Zwirner, New York, on view through October 25, 2014. Hoffheins writes that Abts’ "surfaces are pristine—barely a trace of the brush. She actually holds her work while she paints. The closeness she has with her work is palpable. Abts is known to take as long as one year […]
Anselm Kiefer’s Alchemy
Martin Gayford writes about the work of Anselm Kiefer on view at the Royal Academy, London, through December 14, 2014. Gayford notes: "In alchemy, lead was to be transmuted into gold, and Kiefer is intensely interested in alchemy – he admires the writings of the Jacobean English astrologer, cosmologist, cabbalist and alchemist Robert Fludd (1574-1637). His work, […]
Lester Johnson: Existentialism’s Matisse
Franklin Einspruch reviews Lester Johnson: Classical Themes at ACME Fine Art, Boston, on view through October 25, 2014. Einspruch writes: "Back in 1951, the linear, icy, detail-driven paintings of Lucian Freud prompted the critic Herbert Read to dub him the Ingres of Existentialism. Johnson may likewise have been existentialism’s Matisse, at least for a time. […]
John Zurier: Interview
Matthew Harrison Tedford interviews painter John Zurier on the occasion of his exhibition Matrix 255 at the Berkeley Art Museum, on view through December 21, 2014. Asked about the "idea of you working in a landscape rather than depicting the landscape," Zurier comments: "For me, you experience nature whole. It just comes to you. With […]
Three Americans in Postwar Paris
Joseph Nechvatal reviews the exhibition Trois Américains à Paris at Galerie 53 and Galerie Routes, Paris, on view through October 25, 2014. The show features works by John Levee, Joe Downing, John Franklin Koenig. Nechvatal writes: "The first thing I noticed was that the work exemplifies how being outside of one’s own (American) system, yet […]
David Schutter: Lingua Franca of Painterliness
Josephine Halvorson considers the work of painter David Schutter, most recently on view at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago. Halvorson writes: "Convention is a subject of Schutter’s work. He interrogates paintings from the past, spending long periods of time in close proximity to them. Later, returning to his Chicago studio, Schutter re-enacts – on a like-sized […]
Jane Corrigan @ Kerry Schuss
John Yau reviews works by Jane Corrigan at Kerry Schuss Gallery, New York, on view through October 26, 2014. Yau writes: "The thing that strikes me about Corrigan’s paintings is the sympathy that she shows for her subjects, who seem to exist in a dream-like domain. They seem to be unaware that they are being […]