New York School
Inventing Downtown
Joanne Mattera Art Blog
Joanne Mattera photoblogs a tour of the recent exhibition Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965 at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University. Mattera notes: “Looking back, as this exhibition allows you to do, you see how important these cooperative efforts were, not only for the artists–many of whom went on to stellar […]
Cy Twombly @ the Pompidou
London Review of Books
Alice Spawls reviews works by Cy Twombly at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, on view through April 24, 2017. Spawls notes: “For all that his paintings groan under the weight of writing about them, and their own allusiveness (many feature lines of poetry or have ‘poetic’ titles), Twombly wasn’t an ideas artist. He disagreed with the […]
Stella Still Intriguing
Artillery
David DiMichele reviews Frank Stella: A Retrospective at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, on view through February 26, 2017. DiMichele notes: “The decorative quality in many of Stella’s paintings, particularly the protractor series from the late 1960s, has led many writers to compare him to Matisse, the master of color, but I see him […]
Abstract Expressionism: The Impact of Display
Saturation Point
Paul Carey Kent reviews and compares two versions of the exhibition Abstract Expressionism, first on view at the at the Royal Academy, London this past fall and currently on view at the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain (through June 4, 2017). Kent concludes: “In all respects, then, Bilbao was superior to London, and what had seemed […]
De Kooning & Zao Wou-Ki Trace Paths to Abstraction
Hamptons Art Hub
Charles A. Riley II reviews Willem de Kooning | Zao Wou-Ki at Lévy Gorvy Gallery, New York, on view through March 5, 2017. Riley writes that the show “features more than 20 paintings from the two artists’ absolute peak decades, the ’40s through the ’70s … The initial presentation certainly makes the case for one […]
Inventing Downtown
Arteidolia
Ron Morosan reviews Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965 at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University, on view through April 1, 2017. Morosan writes: “As we examine more of the evidence presented in Inventing Downtown we start to see how this exhibition shows the missing link in the development of what […]
Mark Rothko: Dark Palette
ARTnews
Alfred Mac Adam reviews the recent exhibition Mark Rothko: Dark Palette at Pace Gallery, New York Mac Adam observes: “The act of superimposing black on color ironically transforms the surface into a mirror that enables viewers to seek and lose themselves in the work. The paintings invite speculation, and speculation generates dynamic narrative, going “on […]
Ed Clark @ the Tilton Gallery
Hyperallergic
John Yau reviews Ed Clark: Paintings at the Tilton Gallery, New York, on view through February 18, 2017. Yau writes: “Clark’s approach is simple and straightforward, and he has not altered it much over the years. I don’t think he needs to. I think what needs to happen is to bring together in an exhibition […]
Agnes Martin @ the Guggenheim Museum
Too Much Art
Mario Naves reviews the Agnes Martin retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, on view through January 11, 2017. Naves writes: “After flirting with biomorphism, Martin settled into her signature groove: patterning—typically, grids or horizontal stripes—laid out with underplayed concision. The color palette, from the get-go, is limited. Grays and off-whites predominate, so much so that […]
Norman Lewis: Painting Black and Blue
New City Art
Stephen F. Eisenman reviews Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis at the Chicago Cultural Center, on view through January 8, 2017. Eisenman writes: “[Lewis’] paintings are often blue, and they reference the exhilaration and despair of being black in America. Friend and contemporary of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and the rest, he never attained comparable […]
Transcending Despair: Rothko, Herrera, Martin
Tamar Zinn
Tamar Zinn finds comfort from current events in three abstract painting exhibitions: Mark Rothko: Dark Palette at Pace Gallery, New York (through January 7), Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight at the Whitney Museum (through January 9), and Agnes Martin at the Guggenheim Museum (through January 11). Zinn writes: “It is through the arts, as well […]
Betty Parsons & Abstract Expressionism
Patterns That Connect
Andy Parkinson considers the paintings of Betty Parsons. Parkinson writes: “In her paintings Parsons borrows more from her AbEx contemporaries, but without the all-important scale, Clyfford Still in miniature, almost. Parsons also looks back to earlier European modernist works, those of Paul Klee for example, not only in the modest sized of her canvases but […]
The Democracy of Touches: A New Reading of Richard Pousette-Dart
Brooklyn Rail
Phong Bui reflects on two exhibitions: Richard Pousette-Dart: The Centennial at Pace Gallery (closed) and Altered States: The Etchings of Richard Pousette-Dart at Del Deo & Barzune, on view through December 16, 2016. Bui writes: “In confronting such an overwhelmingly tactile yet optical experience, I’ve come to realize the impulse to build up surfaces corresponds […]
Painting Joan Mitchell
Beyond Print
Julia Greenstreet writes about the Joan Mitchell’s print collaborations with Kenneth Tyler. Greenstreet writes: “Although Mitchell was a painter above all else (oil on canvas was her preferred medium), she was also an accomplished printmaker and produced a significant graphic oeuvre of prints and artist books… Tyler was struck by Mitchell’s ‘mastery of colour unparalleled […]
6 Painters on Abstract Expressionism
RA Magazine
Frank Bowling, Christopher Le Brun, Mali Morris, Vanessa Jackson, Fiona Rae and Sean Scully each share their thoughts on an Abstract Expressionist painter on the occasion of the exhibition Abstract Expressionism at the Royal Academy, London, on view through January 2, 2017.
Bradley Walker Tomlin: A Retrospective
Brooklyn Rail
Joyce Beckenstein reviews Bradley Walker Tomlin: A Retrospective opening at The Dorsky Museum, New Paltz, on view through December 11, 2016. Beckenstein begins: “Filling in the personal and art historical gaps that have lingered in the forty years since Tomlin’s last full dress show, this exhibition deftly tracks this artist’s idiosyncratic style, one that lives […]
Richard Pousette-Dart: Hiding in Plain Sight
From the Mayor's Doorstep
Piri Halasz reviews Richard Pousette-Dart: The Centennial at Pace Gallery, New York, on view through October 15, 2016. Halasz writes: “this show has a number of paintings that yank the artist out of his stately cubo-surrealist orbit of the 40s and situate him far more certainly in the tempestuous ensuing decade… they situate their creator […]
Robert Motherwell @ Bernard Jacobson
AbCrit
John Bunker reviews Robert Motherwell: Abstract Expressionism at Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, on view through November 26, 2016. Bunker writes: “Motherwell has a reputation for being the clever aesthete who was always too enamoured of the ‘Old World’ of Mediterranean sunshine, azure skies, Gauloises packets – and always with an eye for rare book wrappers […]
Helen Frankenthaler: Pure Color
LA Times
Carolina A. Miranda interviews John Elderfield, curator of Line into Color, Color into Line: Helen Frankenthaler, Paintings, 1962–1987 at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, on view through October 29, 2016. Elderfield remarks: “The traditional way, of course, is to make a drawing as the basis of a painting, then add color to it. In ‘Mountains and Sea,’ you […]
Reading Cy Twombly
The Paris Review Daily
Mary Jacobus blogs about the “inventive use of literary quotation and allusion throughout [CyTwombly’s] long career and his relation to poetry as an inspiration for his art,” the subject of her new book Reading Cy Twombly: Poetry in Paint (Princeton University Press).