Exhibitions

Diana Copperwhite: Signal to Noise
Hyperallergic

Stephen Maine reviews Diana Copperwhite: Depend on the Morning Sun at 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel,New York, on view through January 28, 2017. Maine writes: “Copperwhite has hit upon a crazily recognizable way of applying paint that both updates (somewhat tongue-in-cheekily) the concept of the “autographic mark” so prized by the analysts of Abstract Expressionism, and […]

Dennis Kardon & Alexi Worth in Conversation
artcritical

Dennis Kardon and Alexi Worth discuss their paintings on the occasion of the recent exhibition Dennis Kardon & Alexi Worth: Within Reach at Myers School of Art, the University of Akron. Exhibition curator Matthew Kolodziej noted that Kardon and Worth “share a mutual engagement with how narrative, material, and perception intersect. Within these visual narratives, the […]

Carmen Herrera: Art Without Lies
New York Review of Books

Claire Messud reviews Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight recently on view at the Whitney Museum, New York. Messud writes: “From the first, Herrera deployed line and color with an energy intensified by her rigor. A City (1948), with its blocks of lemon yellow, black, and cobalt blue, foreshadows a palate that recurred in later series. […]

Guido Cagnacci @ the Frick
The New Criterion

Franklin Einspruch reviews Cagnacci’s “Repentant Magdalene”: An Italian Baroque Masterpiece from the Norton Simon Museum at the Frick Collection, New York, on view through January 22, 2017. Einspruch observes: “Parts of this scene are exquisite… Parts of this scene are not exquisite… Nevertheless, the whole of the thing is a marvel. Light catches on an […]

Pat Steir @ Dominique Lévy
Art Observed

S. Ozer reviews paintings by Pat Steir at Dominique Lévy Gallery, London, on view through January 28, 2017. Ozer writes: “Steir creates these very physical images by pinning an un-stretched canvas on the wall, and while standing on a ladder pushes the paint across the canvas horizontally. The weight of the colors rush down, and […]

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 […]

Winifred Nicholson & the Pleasures of Colour
Apollo Magazine

Frances Spalding reviews Winifred Nicholson: Liberation of Colour at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, on view through February 12, 2017. Spalding writes: “At the Paterson Gallery, it was she, and not Ben [Nicholson], who enjoyed a howling success. It gained her enough money to buy Bankshead, a Cumbrian farmhouse with a sloping garden, offering a […]

George Negroponte @ Anita Rogers
Steven Alexander Journal

Eric Holzman writes about the work of George Negroponte whose exhibition Gravel Road is on view at Anita Rogers Gallery, New York, through January 7, 2017. Holzman observes: “In his current show … Negroponte uses shaped bits and pieces of cardboard as his support. The work feels softer than the previous body of work as the […]

Fabienne Verdier: Interview
Studio International

Anna McNay interviews painter Fabienne Verdier whose exhibition Rhythms and Reflections is on view at Waddington Custot, London through February 4, 2017. Verdier remarks: “All my work is a kind of meditation. When I create a background for a work, I do so layer after layer. I first try to create a kind of vibration. Then […]

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 […]

9 Women and Abstraction @ Zürcher Gallery
Hyperallergic

Thomas Micchelli reviews 1970’s: 9 Women and Abstraction at Zürcher Gallery, New York, on view through December 22, 2016. The show features works by: Lula Blocton, Regina Bogat, Samia Halaby, Hermine Ford, June Leaf, Lizbeth Marano, Kazuko Miyamoto, Lynn Umlauf, and Merrill Wagner. Micchelli writes: “In her highly informative essay on the exhibition’s website, curator […]

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 […]

Outside In: 5 Painters @ Steven Harvey
Hyperallergic

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, […]

Cubism & War @ the Museo Picasso
The Artblog

Justin O. Walker reviews Cubism and War: The Crystal and the Flame at the Museu Picasso, Barcelona, on view through January 29th 2017. Walker writes: “The exhibit reveals the cubists in Paris were never far from the external specter of ruin, and evidently leery of the internal one. The war to end all wars was […]

Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism
New York Review of Books

J. Hoberman reviews Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on view through January 8, 2017. Hoberman writes: “To a degree, ‘Paint the Revolution’ is the story of the three star muralists, Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco, who along with the posthumously canonized Frida Kahlo, defined the new […]

Max Beckmann in New York
Too Much Art

Mario Naves reviews Max Beckmann in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view through February 20, 2017. Naves observes: “Among the most striking aspects of Beckmann’s vision is that, notwithstanding his meditations on human folly and vice, it never descends into nihilism or despair. The paintings bristle and bump with […]

Renoir @ the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Apollo Magazine

Paul Bonaventura reviews Renoir: Intimacy at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, on view through January 22, 2017. Bonaventura writes: “Guillermo Solana, the Thyssen’s artistic director and curator of the show, suggests in the catalogue that Renoir had his brain in his hands. Painting for him was not an intellectual pursuit to be conjectured and argued over, it was […]

Emily Carr & Wolfgang Paalen in British Columbia
Art:21 Magazine

Colin Browne considers the impact of a little known meeting between modernist painter Emily Carr and German surrealist Wolfgang Paalen on their subsequent work.

Beyond Caravaggio @ The National Gallery, London
London Review of Books

Julian Bell reviews Beyond Caravaggio at The National Gallery, London, on view through January 15, 2017. Describing Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ (1602), Bell observes “This is beauty, Caravaggio-style. An object is illuminated and scrutinised until its textures sing out. Comparable pleasures are on offer when Caravaggio paints a glass vase in the National Gallery’s […]

What Diebenkorn & Matisse Taught Me
Getty Iris

Elyn Zimmerman reflects on his studies with Richard Diebenkorn on the occasion of Matisse/Diebenkorn at the Baltimore Museum of Art (through January 29, 2017) and at the San Francisco Museum of Art from March 11 – May 29, 2017. Zimmerman recalls: “A favorite topic [of Diebenkorn’s] was Henri Matisse… Diebenkorn spoke about the difficulty of […]