Abstraction
Ellen Berkenblit @ Anton Kern
New York Review of Books
Dan Nadel reviews paintings by Ellen Berkenblit recently on view at Anton Kern Gallery, New York. Nadel writes: “In defiance and celebration of the earthen black that surrounds them, the vigorously delineated horses, flowers, hands, faces, stripes, a nude, and a foot found in Ellen Berkenblit’s striking new paintings at Anton Kern Gallery are a […]
Gillian Ayres @ National Museum of Wales
London Review of Books
Julian Bell reviews an exhibition of works by Gillian Ayres on view at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff through September 3, 2017. Bell writes: “The huge canvases Gillian Ayres painted during the 1980s rush at you like Atlantic breakers. Bursts of orange, viridian, scarlet, yellow and cyan tumble forward and engulf you; convulsions of oil […]
Aspects of Abstraction @ Lisson Gallery
Hyperallergic
John Yau reviews Aspects of Abstraction at Lisson Gallery, New York, on view through August 11, 2017. The show features works by Leon Polk Smith, Paul Feeley, Joanna Pousette-Dart, and Marina Adams. Yau writes: “The exhibition’s circumspect title makes no grand or inclusive claim. It brings together four diverse artists from different generations who share similar tendencies… Frankly, I […]
Fahrelnissa Zeid @ Tate Modern
Studio International
Emily Spicer reviews an exhibition of works by Fahrelnissa Zeid at Tate Modern, London, on view through October 8, 2017. Spicer writes that in Zeid’s painting Resolved Problems (1948), “[figuration] drops away entirely. This is a joyously coloured canvas of gestural shapes that seem to jostle in front of your eyes. Red is the dominant colour, a hot, […]
Richard Smith: Work of Five Decades
AbCrit
John Bunker reviews Richard Smith: Work of Five Decades at Flowers Gallery, Cork Street, London, on view through July 15, 2017. Bunker writes: “To point to and paraphrase Matisse … he said the first line that an artist makes as she/he begins a drawing is in fact the 5th as there are already the four […]
Peter Shear @ the Fortnight Institute
Hyperallergic
John Yau reviews Peter Shear: Magnolias All at Once at the Fortnight Institute, New York, on view through July 16, 2017. Yau writes: “Shear is interested in composition, color relationships, how forms sit within the rectangle of the canvas, what can be done with the edges, and the texture of paint… There is something wonderfully […]
Ellsworth Kelly: Last Paintings & Plant Drawings
Art Observed
D. Creahan reviews Ellsworth Kelly: Last Paintings and Plant Drawings at Matthew Marks Gallery, o view through June 24, 2017. Crehan writes: “Alongside his body of paintings, Matthew Marks is also exhibiting a series of Kelly’s Plant Drawings, a long-running series of graphite and ink drawings made as observations of the natural curves and lines of […]
Mark Tobey: Threading Light
The New Criterion
Mario Naves reviews Mark Tobey: Threading Light at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, on view through September 10, 2017. Naves writes: “‘Threading Light’ is a superb exhibition. Sensitively paced and keenly selected, the exhibition underscores painterly and metaphorical continuities, all the while tracing a development that, though not without hiccups, is streamlined and, until the […]
Mike Solomon @ Berry Campbell Gallery
Hamptons Art Hub
Peter Malone reviews Mike Solomon: Immediate Splendor at Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, on view through July 8, 2017. Malone begins: “Mike Solomon’s pictorial space appears familiarly limited in the traditional modernist sense, but is dominated by a persistent blur. Viewers are left with the odd feeling of being kept just outside of an event […]
Philip Guston: A Painter and His Muses
The Art Section
Deanna Sirlin reviews Philip Guston and The Poets at the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, on view through September 3, 2017. Sirlin concludes: “[Eugenio] Montale writes of his own poetry, ‘The subject matter of my poetry . . . is the human condition considered in itself.’ Whether one is looking at the earliest period of Guston’s pictorial works, […]
Lois Dickson: A Playpen Within A Battlefield
artcritical
An essay by David Cohen on the paintings of Lois Dickson. Dickson’s exhibition New Worlds is on view at the New York Studio School through July 15, 2017. Cohen writes: “A ludic morphology lies at the heart of Dickson’s endeavor. Elaborations of shape and excavations of depth animate her pictorial intelligence in ways that are […]
Merrill Wagner: Works from the 70’s
Hyperallergic
Thomas Micchelli reviews Merrill Wagner: Works from the 70’s at Zürcher Gallery, New York, on view through June 24, 2017. Micchelli writes: “Merrill Wagner’s remarkable tape paintings are as much head games as they are inquiries into precision and chance. Trying to puzzle them out is akin to reverse-engineering a ship in a bottle: even […]
Abstracts @ Poem 88
ArtsATL
Rebecca Brantley reviews ABSTRACTS at Poem 88, Atlanta, on view through June 10, 2017. The show features works by Brendan Carroll, Ben Steele and Zuzka Vaclavik. “Each artist,” Brantley writes, “engages 20th-century traditions, albeit in markedly different ways.”
John Zurier @ Anglim Gilbert
Squarecylinder
David M. Roth reviews John Zurier: Dust and Troubled Air at Anglim Gilbert, San Francisco, on view through June 10, 2017. Roth writes: “This sensation of looking at dense fields and then being drawn into irregularly shaped pools of light is unexpected, shocking even, because nothing in the quick-read indicates that possibility. I was also […]
David Novros @ Paula Cooper
artcritical
David Rhodes reviews works by David Novros at Paula Cooper Gallery (through June 30). Rhodes writes: “Untitled (1975), and Untitled (Frog Altar) (1975) use right angles as pivotal compositional elements… Both the viewer and the painting are animated, provoking an experience like that of passing through a chapel or a cave, rather than analytically viewing […]
Julian Hatton’s Free Range Abstraction
Although resolutely abstract, Julian Hatton’s new paintings deliver the full, immersive effect of the landscape.
Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Mangold & David Novros
Hamptons Art Hub
Charles A. Riley II reviews three New York exhibitions: Ellsworth Kelly: Last Paintings and Plant Drawings at Matthew Marks Gallery (through June 24), Robert Mangold Paintings and Works on Paper 2013 – 2017 at Pace Gallery (through June 17), and works by David Novros at Paula Cooper Gallery (through June 30). Riley notes: “Touring this notably […]
Stanley Whitney: Interview
New American Paintings Blog
Arthur Peña interviews painter Stanley Whitney on the occasion of the exhibition FOCUS: Stanley Whitney recently on view at The Modern, Fort Worth, TX. Whitney comments: “It happens in the color. People bring their own stories to it and the work allows for them to happen all at once. The titles do that to. Peaches could be […]
Mark Dutcher: Studio Visit
Art and Cake
Gary Brewer visits the studio of Mark Dutcher whose show Another World is on view at Jason Vass Gallery, Los Angeles through June 3, 2017. Brewer writes that “[Dutcher’s] approach can express innocence and joy in passages where the canvas remains fresh and present and the paint is applied lightly. In other works where an […]
Mercedes Matter @ Mark Borghi
Hyperallergic
Jennifer Samet reviews Mercedes Matter: A Survey: Paintings & Drawings from 1929 to 1998 at Mark Borghi Fine Art, New York, on view through May 26, 2017. Samet writes: “Matter’s insistence on the nude female body, and on still lifes of flowers, drapery, and skulls as the focus of observational painting — for herself and […]