Freeform Geometries
Peter Malone reviews the Summer Invitational show – featuring works by Rick Klauber, Joanne Mattera, Paul Mogensen, Gary Petersen, and Sarah Walker – at Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York, on view through July 15, 2014. Malone writes that the show "reveals how artists no longer serve that grave, near-religious mysticism that geometry brought to early […]
Eric Fischl: Interview
Robert Berlind interviews painter Eric Fischl about his work and career. Fischl's autobiography Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas was published by Crown Publishers in 2013. Fischl comments: "I came out of expressionist abstraction, I went into the not-knowing part of it and tried to find something there, then I stopped at […]
Alicia McCarthy & Jenny Sharaf
Priscilla Frank blogs about an exhibition of works by Alicia McCarthy and Jenny Sharaf at Johansson Projects, Oakland, on view through August 16, 2014. Frank writes that the show "presents two radically different yet undeniably connecting visions of California art-making… McCarthy works in muted tones while Sharaf prefers wild, drippy neons. McCarthy works at a […]
Ed Moses & Larry Poons
Peter Frank reviews the exhibition Ed Moses & Larry Poons: The Language of Paint at William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, on view through July 19, 2014. Frank writes: "Poons and Moses do not simply employ paint, they explore paint, manipulating the possibilities and peculiarities of acrylic every which way. Poons’ engagement with paint, initially […]
Frida Kahlo Unbound
Carolina A. Miranda reviews the exhibition Unbound: Contemporary Art After Frida Kahlo at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, on view through October 5, 2014. Miranda writes that the MCA exhibition "seeks to restore Kahlo’s artistic legacy. 'Sometimes, someone becomes so ubiquitous, they become invisible,' says MCA curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm. 'She’s been so […]
This One’s Optimistic: Pincushion
Dennis Hollingsworth offers an optimistic outlook for contemporary painting inspired by the exhibition This One’s Optimistic: Pincushion, a group show featuring 40 artists curated by Cary Smith, at the New Britain Museum of American Art, on through September 14, 2014. Inspired by Smith's curatorial premise which "is based on affirmation and a commitment to painting," Hollingsworth […]
Thomas Cole & The Voyage of Life
Jonathan Kamholtz reviews the exhibition America’s Eden: Thomas Cole and The Voyage of Life at the Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, on view through September 14, 2014. Kamholtz writes: "Like its models in Dutch 17th century painting, American landscape art loves to raise questions about the status and situatedness of the observing eye… The Hudson […]
Graham Nickson: Interview
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Graham Nickson about his work and career. Nickson comments that he is "trying to make something monumental out of something transient, trying to make something transient out of the monumental. In the large paintings, it is a long road to closure. That’s why the watercolors are helpful, because, by their nature, […]
Milton Resnick at Mana Contemporary
artcritical
Jonathan Goodman reviews the exhibiton Milton Resnick (1917-2004): Paintings and Works on Paper from the Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation at Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, New Jersey, on view through August 1, 2014. Goodman writes: “Resnick lived his artistic life under the shadow of more famous painters, but that fact should not be allowed to […]
Ralph Coburn: Distillations
Altoon Sultan blogs about the work of painter Ralph Coburn. Sultan writes: "I find myself totally charmed by Coburn's abstracting of the world around him. He made several trips to France between 1949 and 1956, when Ellsworth Kelly was living there. If you see a relationship between his drawings and Kelly's it's because they spent […]
Jenny Saville: Oxyrhynchus
Martin Gayford reviews the exhibition Jenny Saville: Oxyrhynchus at Gagosian Gallery, London, on view through July 26, 2014. Gayford writes: "The new work is, as the title suggests, all about layers. In several ways this marks a departure in Saville’s work. Oxyrhynchus was an ancient Egyptian rubbish dump, a place where precious papyri survived for […]
Bridget Riley: Durable Modernism
Francesco Dama reviews Bridget Riley: The Stripe Paintings 1961–2014 at David Zwirner Gallery, London, on view through July 25. Dama writes: "Following the Modernist tradition, the artist has dedicated her whole career to understanding visual perception, engaging with form and color. Yet, her way of painting links her to Minimalism and to conceptual practice, influences […]
Mannerism, Kitsch & the Avant-garde
Barry Schwabsky reviews the exhibition Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino: Diverging Paths of Mannerism at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, on view through July 20, 2014. Schwabsky writes: "it’s precisely because Mannerism flirts with bad taste that it can also be seen as the first avant-garde. It’s a curious thing, when you think about it: medieval art, even […]
Scott Greene on Winslow Homer
Scott Greene considers Winslow Homer’s The Herring Net (1885) in the collection of the Art Institute Chicago. Greene writes: "Like most great traditional paintings, 'The Herring Net' is a bundle of contradictions. The sensuous, lapping applications of paint are loose and free, yet bound by observation and specificity. The jagged naturalistic mountains of water soften […]
Elizabeth Gilfilen: Studio Visit
Paul Behnke photo blogs a visit to the studio of painter Elizabeth Gilfilen. Gilfilen’s work is on view in the group exhibition Conversations, curated by Sharon Louden, at Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, on view through August 22, 2014. Behnke notes: “Gilfilen paints large canvases with striking, sophisticated color palettes and seemingly frenzied paint application […]
Gesture & Authenticity in Painting
George Hofmann considers the search for authenticity in contemporary painting. Hofmann writes: "The most recent overtly gestural painting in our history, Abstract Expressionism, did not 'die', as many think – it withered, or more accurately, was strangled, by superficiality: a superabundance of empty and meaningless moves on canvas swamped the art consciousness of the time, […]
Jackson Pollock & Michelangelo
Joseph Nechvatal reviews the exhibition Jackson Pollock: The Figure of the Fury at the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, on view through July 27, 2014. Nechvatal writes: "The exhibition’s title, The Figure of the Fury, refers to Pollock in the act of painting as he moved around his canvases, while simultaneously alluding to the expression, 'fury of […]
Judith Belzer @ George Lawson
Barbara Morris reviews the recent exhibition Judith Belzer: Paths of Desire at George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco. Morris writes: "Belzer explores the edge where the natural world interfaces with the industrialized landscape, emphasizing how rhythms and patterns found in nature are echoed in the structures that man has created. An underlying subtext to Belzer’s work […]
Otis Jones & Bret Slater
Michael Corris reviews an exhibition of works by Otis Jones and Bret Slater at Holly Johnson Gallery, Dallas, on view through July 28, 2014. Corris writes that Jones' and Slater's works are "related, but different. Both artists approach painting as though they are making models of painting, and their models churn out paintings that are, […]
Andrew Holmquist: Interview
Kevin Blake talks to painter Andrew Holmquist about his work. Holmquist comments: "I am tempted to say there are no universal conditions for contemporary painting, but that might be its own kind of condition. The choice to make paintings doesn’t have much pushback right now, which allows for so many people to do it without […]