Barry Schwabsky reviews recent exhibitions by Ed Clark (Tilton Gallery), Lynda Benglis (Cheim & Read) and Lois Dodd (Alexandre Gallery).

Schwabsky writes: "Clark revels in the subtlest interplay of will and accident, painting wet-into-wet to coax suave modulations of color out of the bluntest, even seemingly most slapdash concatenations of matter… Clark’s muscular approach to painting finds a three-dimensional analogue in the ceramic sculptures by Lynda Benglis… the wonder of them is how fully Benglis has fused her luscious glazes with the volcanic sculptural figures, using the vitreous color with just as much variety as she does the clay, sometimes in agreement, sometimes in counterpoint. Whether you call it painting in three dimensions or sculpting with color, Benglis does it with a vehemence… [Dodd's] sturdy paintings of flowers, houses and domesticated landscapes possess a ruthless force of their own: it’s their concision, the expression of a rapidity of perception that does not linger sentimentally over any unnecessary detail. It’s not merely that she leaves things out, but more that every possible superfluous mark has encountered her disdain, one by one, and been utterly snuffed out."