John Yau

John Yau reviews Rackstraw Downes: Paintings and Drawings at Betty Cunningham Gallery, New York, on view through October 14, 2018. Yau writes: "In 'Outdoor Passageway at 15 Rivington,' Downes recognizes infinite time (the sky above), seasonal time (the air conditioning units), and historical time (the dirty walls), as well as time passing (the passageway). Despite

John Yau reviews Suzan Frecon: recent oil paintings at David Zwirner Gallery, New York, on view through October 21, 2017. Yau writes: "I think of Frecon’s shape as an abstract thing, a form that defies being turned into language or a message. I think her resistance to the tendency to easily convert her art into

John Yau reviews Gabriele Evertz/Sanford Wurmfeld: Polychromy at MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, New York, on view through August 12, 2017. Yau observes that the two artists' "work is very different from each other, demonstrating that the ontology of color is a wide-open field — a space where research, color theory, and painting can arrive at very

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

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

John Yau reviews Anne Harvey: Private Life at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York, on view through June 11, 2017. Yau writes: "Harvey’s observational paintings were described by John Ashbery, in 1966, as 'the probing anguish of an almost Jamesian dissecting eye.' Ashbery went on to state: “A curious anxiety, tempered by the exhilaration

John Yau reviews Shawn Thornton: Pareidolia at CUE Art Foundation, New York, on view through May 24, 2017. Yau concludes: "Thornton has likened his work to a “cosmos of small tantric paintings that come together as anthropomorphic circuit boards.” In a number of the paintings, he overlays these circuit boards onto his self-portrait, so that

John Yau reviews Anoka Faruqee: Rainbows and Bruises at Koenig & Clinton , New York, on view through April 8, 2017. Yau concludes: "By opening up the geometric while maintaining a painstaking approach, Faruqee seems to have entered new, uncharted territory. While the Moireseries recalls the history of weaving and decorative fabrics, the white Circlepaintings

John Yau reviews R. B. Kitaj: The Exile at Home at Marlborough Contemporary, New York, on view through April 8, 2017. Yau writes: "B. Kitaj was passionately–one might almost say, defiantly–a literary painter. That was not a politic thing to be in the postwar art world, when abstraction became the mainstream and even most representational

John Yau reviews Chuck Webster: Look Around at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, on view through February 18, 2017. Yau writes: "'Liberty or Death' is a breakthrough painting for Webster and, in that regard, a major step for this artist, whose work is always interesting. For one thing, he has opened up a vast space

John Yau reviews Eleanore Mikus: Tablets and Related Works, 1960–69 at Craig F. Starr Gallery, New York, on view through March 25, 2017. Yau rites: "[Eleanore Mikus] brought together nuance and structure, making them into a subtly captivating experience... she is clearly uninterested in the perfection we associate with the Minimalist aesthetic, and with artists

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

John Yau reviews a recent exhibition of works by Myron Stout at Craig F. Starr Gallery, New York. Yau writes that Stout "expresses neither angst nor impatience with his process. His work arises out of the paradoxical combination of paring everything down, while employing a process of patient accretion. He caressed his work into being.

John Yau reviews Marina Adams: Soft Power at Salon 94 Bowery, New York, on view through February 22, 2016. Yau observes: "The rounded edges of Adams’s biomorphic forms suggest that they are — as the exhibition’s title suggests — soft. While some of forms are interlocking or held in place by other forms, their grip

John Yau reviews Outside In at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, on view through December 31, 2016. The show features works by Andrea Belag, Susanna Coffey, Elliott Green, Stephanie Pierce, and Eleanor Ray Yau writes: "I am thankful for the nameless sensations and wild associations these paintings stirred up. The pleasures they offer are real,

John Yau reviews an exhibition of works by Brenda Goodman at Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, New York, on view through December 18, 2016. Yau concludes: "One of the beauties of Goodman’s painting is its refusal to settle for the immediately legible. By making work that can be read as either abstract or figurative, she invites

John Yau reviews Merlin James: Paintings For Persons at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., on view through November 12, 2016. Yau writes that James "gets at all sorts of feelings without ever locking them into a narrative. He doesn’t tell us how to read his paintings. He gives us that responsibility and, in that regard, he

John Yau reviews Don Voisine: X/V at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, Maine, on view through October 28, 2016. Yau writes: "Voisine’s pieces demand attention; you need to study them up close and from a distance to fully appreciate the illusions the artist creates by way of a handful of shapes and a

John Yau reviews Gary Petersen: Back There Behind the Sun at McKenzie Fine Art, New York, on view through October 16, 2016. Yau writes: "Gary Petersen’s skewed geometric paintings call forth analogies to music and architecture, a realm of vertical intervals and diagonal supports spliced into a precarious balance... His off-center, stacked shapes have a

John Yau reviews paintings by Kyle Staver at Kent Fine Art, New York, on view through October 22, 2016. Yau concludes: "By introducing a touch of comedy, Staver opens up well-known myths and stories, making them more human than lofty. Wit, tenderness and empathy inform her views of the tragic, suggesting that we are not