Exhibitions
John McLaughlin: The Marvelous Void
artcritical
Joan Boykoff Baron and Reuben M. Baron review two exhibitions: John McLaughlin Paintings: Total Abstraction at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (through April 16) and John McLaughlin: Marvelous Void at Van Doren Waxter, New York (closed). The reviewers write: “[McLaughlin] sought a purer basis for abstraction in the Zen concept of the ‘marvelous […]
Mimi Gross: In Her World
Art in America
Dan Nadel profiles painter Mimi Gross who designed the sets and costumes for Douglas Dunn + Dancers: Antipodes at Danspace Project, New York, February 2–4, 2017. Nadel writes: “Gross told me that she is guided by a ‘fanaticism for Titian,’ which is to say, she builds compositions from planes of color. No matter how casual, […]
Dan Walsh @ Paula Cooper
Art Observed
D. Creahan reviews works by Dan Walsh at Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, on view through February 4, 2017. Crehan writes: “Artist Dan Walsh’s work draws on process as a mode of transcendence, working through canvases through a series of evolving forms and rule-based approaches to the canvas space. The artist … draws on repetitive, […]
Suzanne Blank Redstone: 1960s Portal Paintings
Art Agenda
Leigh Markopoulos reviews the recent exhibition Suzanne Blank Redstone: 1960s Portal Paintings at Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco. Markopoulos writes: “Featuring primary-colored geometric forms and grids, [Redstone’s] compositions instantly evoke Piet Mondrian, at the same time hinting at a venerable tradition of European pre-war geometric abstraction of the sort practiced by Jean Hélion. While her experiments […]
James Ensor @ The Royal Academy
Elizabeth Fullerton reviews the recent exhibition Intrigue: James Ensor by Luc Tuymans at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Fullerton writes: “In his curation, Tuymans has played down the cliché of his countryman as a romantic outcast. The show’s sixty-six paintings, drawings, and prints primarily from Ensor’s productive early career include satirical images, landscapes, intimate portraits, […]
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 […]
Ken Weathersby: From Sculpture to Painting
Two Coats of Paint
Sharon Butler reviews Ken Weathersby; Time After Time at Minus Space, Brooklyn, on view through February 25, 2017. Butler writes: “Weathersby seems to be reminding the viewer that abstract paintings may seem formalist, or, to some viewers, simply decorative, but they are in fact part of a larger timeline rooted in history, politics, and philosophy. […]
Carl Ostendarp: Interview
Artpulse
Craig Drennen interviews painter Carl Ostendarp whose work is on view at Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, through February 25, 2017. Ostendarp remarks: “Well there is secret stuff in the paintings! In addition to the images, there’s a crackpot math thing that I do. And there’s an idea about the ‘field’ that’s as much American […]
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 […]
Vanessa Bell @ the Dulwich Picture Gallery
The Guardian
Lauren Elkin previews Vanessa Bell: 1879-1941 at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. The show will be on view from February 8 – June 4, 2017. Elkin concludes: “Bell’s art countered symbolism with intense sensuality and a celebration of the tactile. The explosive beauty of the surface takes us back to the material of the work, […]
Martin Johnson Heade @ the Milwaukee Art Museum
New City Art
Chris Miller reviews Nature and Opulence: The Art of Martin Johnson Heade at the Milwaukee Art Museum, on view through February 26, 2017. Miller writes: “Heade joined the mid-century enthusiasm for exploring biological and geological diversity. He traveled to South America to paint landscapes and exotic hummingbirds. His ornithological designs don’t reach the ornate intensity […]
Etel Adnan @ the Institut du Monde Arabe
Flash Art
Martha Kirszenbaum reviews a recent exhibition of works by Etel Adnan at the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris. Kirszenbaum concludes: “Throughout this intimate retrospective, Adnan’s voice, both feminist and pacifist, reveals itself through her interwoven influences, languages and techniques. She observes her itinerancy, from Smyrna to Beirut, and from Sausalito to Paris, with a generous […]
Paul Nash @ Tate Britain
London Review of Books
T.J. Clark writes about works by Paul Nash at Tate Britain, London, on view through March 5, 2017. Clark begins: “Paul Nash is as close as we come, many think, to having a strong painter of the English landscape in the 20th century. The uncertainties built into the wording here are part of the point: […]
Aubrey Levinthal @ The Painting Center
New York Sun Arts
Xico Greenwald reviews Aubrey Levinthal: Refrigerator Paintings on view at The Painting Center, New York, through January 28, 2017. Greenwald writes: “Milk jugs and the condiments in the icebox are arranged into formally rigorous compositions that show off Ms. Levinthal’s feel for paint… her unpretentious canvases of everyday subjects dialogue with modern masters, particularly School […]
Kerry James Marshall’s Enigmatic Authority
The Nation
Barry Schwabsky reviews Kerry James Marshall: Mastry at the Met Breuer, New York, on view through January 29, 2017. Schwabsky observes: “Marshall is something we haven’t seen for a while, at least in a very convincing way: He is what Baudelaire called for 171 years ago, a painter of the heroism of modern life—and the fact […]
Michael Andrews: Earth, Air, Water
The Independent
Michael Glover reviews Michael Andrews: Earth, Air, Water at Gagosian Gallery, London, on view through March 25, 2017. Writing about Andrews’ painting Thames Painting: The Estuary (1994–95), Glover asks: “What exactly is the painting’s vantage point? High, certainly, almost sea-gull high perhaps. We teeter there, looking down, across, and side to side, never quite getting […]
Stanley Whitney: Interview
Modern Art Notes
Tyler Green talks to painter Stanley Whitney whose work is currently on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, through April 2, 2017. Whitney remarks: “… So I go to Egypt … I’m looking at the pyramids, I’m looking at the tombs, I’m looking at the frescoes on the wall, and then it […]
Marina Adams: Interview
Whitewall
Katy Donoghue interviews painter Marina Adams whose show Soft Power is on view at Salon 94 Bowery, New York, through February 22, 2016. Adams remarks: “I was at the Alhambra, I must have been in my twenties, in Grenada at the Moorish Palace. It’s all tiled. So I was not looking at abstract expressionist paintings, […]
Rezi van Lankveld: Interview
Studio International
Allie Biswas interviews painter Rezi van Lankveld whose exhibition Schelper is on view at Petzel Gallery, New York through February 25, 2017. Van Lankveld explains: “I pour paint to make a ‘happening’ in the painting, to make a line or block without touching it, so it can be pure, like a natural thing. Most important […]
Before Realism: Valentin de Boulogne & the Brothers Le Nain
Art in America
Richard Neer writes: “Valentin [de Boulogne] … was … a leading exponent of a style of painting that Caravaggio had pioneered a generation earlier: shadowy, dramatically lit scenes drawn directly from life that pushed the boundaries of good taste through a commitment to verisimilitude and déclassé subject matter. With his death, that Caravaggesque tradition lost […]