David Rhodes reviews Painting Paintings (David Reed) 1975 at Gagosian Gallery, New York, on view through February 25, 2017.

“In the context of painting in the ’70s, which sought to proscribe illusionism and favor complete material literalism, the paintings are pictures, as well as process. Not only do they record—actively conveying different configurations, speeds, and spatial relationships—they are pictorial and not anti-illusion, a somewhat ambivalent and adventurous position for painting in New York at the time… Reed’s paintings from the mid-’70s address the condition of painting as much as our sense of physical presence, perception, and memory, and they do so without pretense—as ambitious and challenging to engage with then as it is now.”