Olive Ayhens: Interior Wilderness
Stephen Maine reviews the exhibition Olive Ayhens: Interior Wilderness at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York, on view through June 28, 2014. Maine writes: "Demonstrating formal finesse, visual wit and disarmingly direct technique, the recent paintings of Olive Ayhens are a pleasure to behold. The profusion of anecdotal detail in this artist’s work (in particular, her […]
Betty Kaufman: A Story of Red
John Haber reviews Betty Kaufman: A Story of Red at Leslie Tonkonow Art Works + Projects, New York, on view through June 28, 2014. Haber writes that the show "is about a series of works or perhaps a work in series. It is also about squares, red squares. They look all but identical at first, […]
Sight Specific
Larry Groff blogs about the exhibition Sight Specific: A Selection of American Perceptual Paintings, curated by George Nick, at the Concord Art Association (MA), on view through August 13, 2014. Groff notes that curator George Nick "selected more than 75 paintings from 56 artists for this show. The diverse range of styles, subjects and formal […]
Amy Feldman: Interview
Mary Jones interviews painter Amy Feldman whose exhibition Grey Area was recently on view at Sorry We're Closed, Brussels. In her introduction Jones writes: "With simple and strong contrast, Feldman’s forms activate the ground, dispelling any metaphors of the mechanical. Expressive, letter-like cartoon and carnal shapes drive Feldman’s unique, psychologically charged language. The rigorous simplicity […]
Mary Webb & Sean Scully
Emyr Williams reviews two London exhibitions: Sean Scully: Kind of Red at Timothy Taylor Gallery (through July 26) and Mary Webb at St.Marylebone Church (through June 28), part of the Contemporary British Painting series. Williams writes that "Scully has tried something a little different to his usual approach, letting his slabs of brushed colour 'float' […]
Joan Mitchell: Trees & Black Drawings
James Kalm visits two concurrent New York exhibitions of works by Joan Mitchell: Trees at Cheim & Read (through August 29) and Black Drawings and Related Works at Lennon, Weinberg, Inc (through June 28). In the catalogue essay by John Yau for the Trees show at Cheim & Read, Yau quotes Paul Schimmel: "Never randomly […]
Abstraction in Connecticut
Sharon Butler blogs a round-up of abstract shows in Connecticut including: This One’s Optimistic: Pincushion, a group show featuring 40 artists curated by Cary Smith, at the New Britain Museum of American Art (through September 14); The Wave by artists Susan Hoffman Fishman and Elena Kalman at the Wadsworth Atheneum (on view July 12); Olu Oguibe: […]
Cézanne @ The Barnes
Xico Greenwald reviews the exhibition The World Is an Apple: The Still Lifes of Paul Cézanne at The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, on view through September 22, 2014. Greenwald writes that "the artworks in this exhibition contain wildly different compositional arrangements and display varied paint handling, showing Cézanne to be a thoughtful artist engaged in a […]
About Painting @ Castlefield Gallery
Andy Parkinson blogs about the exhibition About Painting at Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, curated by Lisa Denyer, on view through June 29, 2014. The show features works by Claudia Böse, Louisa Chambers, Lisa Denyer, Terry Greene, Matthew Macaulay, David Manley, Andy Parkinson, and Anne Parkinson. The gallery press release notes the "work ranges from the highly […]
Catherine Goodman: Portraits
Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco blogs about the exhibition Catherine Goodman: Portraits from Life at The National Portrait Gallery, London, on view through November 23, 2014. Del Turco writes: "The portraits are almost all close ups, the head bigger than life size, the brushwork layered and energetic, respecting both the form and the surface of the […]
Jennifer Wynne Reeves: Prayer for the Art World
Sharon Butler posts recent words of inspiration for fellow artists by painter Jennifer Wynne Reeves. Reeves passed away over the weekend. Reeves statement begins: "If, BIG IF, I don’t live another year, my prayer for you, for the art world, is that creatives banish doubts about breakthroughs because if we can’t imagine Pollock or Polke breakthroughs […]
Adrian Ghenie: Golems
Paul Black reviews the exhibition Adrian Ghenie: Golems at Pace Gallery, London, on view through July 25, 2014. Black writes: "Ghenie presents himself in Self portrait as Charles Darwin, 2014, oil on canvas. Here the artist is at once the arbiter of scientific change, the cliché of the tortured intellectual, and the anamorphic threat of […]
Susan Vecsey & James Walsh
Franklin Einspruch reviews works by Susan Vecsey & James Walsh at Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, on view through July 3, 2014. Einspruch writes: "There remains a circle of modernists working in New York who trace their roots back to postwar abstraction on Tenth Street and consider themselves to be working with its fundamental concerns. […]
William Beckman @ the Columbus Museum
Orion Wertz reviews the exhibition William Beckman: Drawings, 1967-2013 at the Columbus Museum in Georgia, on view through September 7, 2014. Wertz writes: "One surprise in Beckman’s drawings is the immediate and unworked quality of the charcoal. Many realists take advantage of charcoal’s variability, removing, blending, and manipulating it on the paper’s surface. This is […]
Sabine Tress: Interview
John Bunker interviews painter Sabine Tress about her work. Sabine Tress: Run Run Painter Run is on view at Appels Gallery, Amsterdam through July 4, 2014. Tress comments: "I think I am more and more looking for a personalised version of painting. And above all I want my work to reflect a very individual view […]
Joan Mitchell & Robert De Niro, Sr.
Steven Alexander photoblogs visits to two New York shows: Joan Mitchell: Trees at Cheim & Read (through August 29) and Robert De Niro, Sr.: Paintings and Drawings 1948-1989 at DC Moore (through July 31). Alexander notes: "Both artists build paintings of exquisite beauty out of the rawest materiality of the medium and the language. Both […]
To Leo: American Abstract Artists
Joanne Mattera photo blogs a visit to the exhibition To Leo, A Tribute from American Abstract Artists at Sideshow Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on view through July 13, 2014. The large group show features works by nearly 80 artists. Mattera posts a walkthrough from the opening where "American Abstract Artists, the long-established group of painters and […]
Wildly Inventive Sigmar Polke
Sanford Schwartz reviews the exhibition Alibis: Sigmar Polke 1963–2010 at MoMA, New York, on view through August 3, 2014. Schwartz writes: "Polke was a one-man think tank for new and invariably idiosyncratic ways to make paintings. Surely his coming of age in the 1960s—when, in art schools, it was held that painting as an art […]
Mixtape! @ BOS
Etty Yaniv blogs about the recent exhibition Mixtape! at No. 4 Studio (co-curated by Sophia Alexandrov and Todd Bienvenu) that took place during Bushwick Open Studios. The show featured works by Joe Anthony-Brown, Todd Bienvenu, Katherine Bradford, Lauren Collings, Joy Curtis, Dan Flanagan, Emily Noelle Lambert, Margrit Lewczuk, Gili Levy, Meg Lipke, Lauren Luloff, Sangram […]
Howard Hodgkin in Paris
Jackie Wullschlager reviews an exhibition of paintings by Howard Hodgkin at Gagosian Gallery, Paris, on view through August 9, 2014. Wullschlager writes: "Working within what he calls 'the classical wall of feeling that Degas has built for us', Hodgkin describes his paintings, which look mostly abstract, as 'representational pictures of emotional situations'. His current late […]