Brooklyn Rail

Ed Clark: The Big Sweep
Brooklyn Rail

Charles Moore reviews Ed Clark: The Big Sweep, on view at Hauser & Wirth, New York from September 7– October 21, 2023. Moore notes that “the exhibition, titled The Big Sweep, —named for the artist’s revolutionary use of the push broom as paintbrush—examines how Clark worked at the frontiers of abstract expressionism, experimenting with materiality […]

Charline von Heyl: Interview
Brooklyn Rail

Raphael Rubinstein interviews painter Charline von Heyl whose exhibition Charline von Heyl: Snake Eyes will be on view at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. from November 8, 2018 through January 27, 2019. Von Heyl remarks: “At the root of my painting is the line. As an outline, line defines a shape. In repetition, line creates […]

Peter Halley: Interview
Brooklyn Rail

Tom McGlynn interviews painter Peter Halley on the occasion of a new installation of Halley’s work at Lever House entitled New York, New York. Halley remarks: “I just don’t think the power of abstraction is going away. Our whole cultural universe is built on abstraction, beginning with the abstraction that is money. But in the twentieth […]

Monet & American Abstract Painting
Brooklyn Rail

Norman L Kleeblatt reviews The Water Lilies: American Abstract Painting and the Last (Later) Monet recently on view at the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris. Kleeblatt observes: “Monet’s late work, in particular his now exemplar Water Lilies, offered a new node on the modernist art historical road map that underwrote American Abstract Expressionism. With 20/20 hindsight, late Monet […]

Dona Nelson: In Conversation
Brooklyn Rail

Leeza Meksin interviews painter Dona Nelson whose exhibition Stand Alone Paintings is on view at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College through August 12, 2018. Nelson remarks: “I am interested when architecture does not dominate the experience of the paintings. Maybe one of the strategies of Pollock and Still making such big paintings was […]

Al Held in Paris: 1952-53
Brooklyn Rail

Tom McGlynn reviews Al Held in Paris: 1952-53 at Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York, on view through June 15, 2018. McGlynn begins: “Al Held moved to Paris in the early 1950s where he was part of a loose-knit expatriate community of American painters that included Joan Mitchell and Sam Francis. Mitchell, Francis and Held all […]

John Elderfield on Cézanne’s Portraits
Brooklyn Rail

Phong Bui interviews John Elderfield, curator of Cézanne Portraits on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. through July 8, 2018. Elderfield comments: “Cézanne records a face without interpreting. Of course, we will find ourselves interpreting. We do so when we look at the face of someone one on the subway. But […]

Thomas Nozkowski @ Pace Gallery
Brooklyn Rail

William Corbett reviews an exhibition of paintings by Thomas Nozkowski at Pace Gallery, New York, on view through February 15, 2018. Corbett writes that Nozkowski’s paintings “have a cheerful and clear engagement with their world. They do not ask to be read or figured out. They belong to that strain of twentieth century American painting […]

Cecily Brown: Interview
Brooklyn Rail

Jason Rosenfeld interviews painter Cecily Brown on the occasion of her recent exhibition A Day! Help! Help! Another Day! at Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Brown observes: “It would be ironic if this horrible period in our history was producing really good art, for a change. I’m uncomfortable talking about something too specific to my […]

Holly Coulis: Table Studies
Brooklyn Rail

Jason Rosenfeld reviews Holly Coulis: Table Studies at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, on view through October 22, 2017. Rosenfeld writes: “Coulis’s subjects are not erotic. They are not vanitas images. They are not naturalistic. Instead, they somehow propel you into an imaginative space of sign systems denoting some arcane language—Pale Table, Red Tumblers […]

Ad Reinhardt: Blue Paintings
Brooklyn Rail

Eleanor Ray reviews Ad Reinhardt: Blue Paintings at David Zwirner Gallery, New York, on view through October 21, 2017. Ray writes: “Our idea of Reinhardt’s work, whether from reproductions or sporadic viewings, might tend to flatten it, and the in-person effect far exceeds that mental image. Having already been a fan of Reinhardt, I was […]

Against Space
Brooklyn Rail

James Hyde argues that space “isn’t a manifestation or aim of all painting, nor a timeless idea, but a historical Modernist convention.” Hyde writes: “Discussions about ‘painters’ use of space’ may serve as a way of speaking about the general ‘feel’ of a picture, its atmosphere, use of perspective or presentation of overlapping planes. These are all more […]

Guy Goodwin: Interview
Brooklyn Rail

Phong Bui interviews painter Guy Goodwin whose exhibition Grotto Relief was recently on view at Brennan & Griffin, New York. Goodwin remarks: “The relationship I’ve developed with my color, which takes a day or two to dry, is the biggest step I’ve taken in my life as an artist. The miraculous thing is that when […]

Looking at Late de Chirico
Brooklyn Rail

Matvey Levenstein, Stephen Ellis, and Lisa Yuskavage discuss de Chirico’s oft maligned late work. Their comments were submitted as part of a panel (moderated by Giovanni Casini) associated with the exhibition Giorgio de Chirico – Giulio Paolini / Giulio Paolini – Giorgio de Chirico at the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA), New York, on […]

Sandro Chia at Marc Straus
Brooklyn Rail

Jonathan Goodman reviews a recent exhibition of works by Sandro Chia at Marc Straus Gallery, New York. Goodman writes: “It is hard to read Chia’s inclination for forthright feeling in an environment like ours—dominated by the market and mostly biased against a recognizable awareness of art history. In contrast, in a painting such as Looking […]

Al Taylor: Early Paintings
Brooklyn Rail

Tom McGlynn reviews Al Taylor: Early Paintings at David Zwirner Gallery, New York, on view through April 15, 2017. McGlynn writes: “What at first may underwhelm, in other words, can become an inexorable undertow that sets any preconceived notion of painting adrift in a sea of local allusion and wandering association…There is a token of […]

On Georgia O’Keeffe, In and Out of Sight
Brooklyn Rail

Gaby Collins-Fernandez considers the work of Georgia O’Keeffe. Collins-Fernandez concludes “The openness with which O’Keeffe considers observation allows a viewer to track formal similarities between the works. It’s just that what she was looking at was not so limited—her dreams and thoughts, photographs, landscapes, art she’d seen, edges, shadows, shapes. This variety, and the ease […]

Katharina Grosse: Interview
Brooklyn Rail

Phong Bui interviews painter Katharina Grosse whose work is on view at Gagosian Gallery, New York, through March 11, 2017. Grosse comments: “I think color is such an interesting analytical aspect of painting. It can sit anywhere. It can fit into anything. It can unify or break up the hierarchical orderliness of how we see the […]

Tamara Gonzales: Interview
Brooklyn Rail

Raymond Foye and Peter Lamborn Wilson interview painter Tamara Gonzales whose work was recently on view at at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York. Gonzales comments: “Art school was so much fun, it seemed like a vacation from my life—a pleasure… But the idea that then you come out and you’re making art about the […]

Painting Paintings (David Reed) 1975
Brooklyn Rail

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 […]