Reviews
Arshile Gorky Landscapes @ Hauser & Wirth
Hyperallergic
Thomas Micchelli reviews Ardent Nature: Arshile Gorky Landscapes, 1943–47 at Hauser & Wirth, New York, on view through December 23, 2017. Micchelli observes: “The drawings in this show are breathtaking in their variety and intensity. Motifs glide in and out; graphite lines trace the contours of unknown plants and body parts, accented by strokes of green, […]
Ad Reinhardt: The Threshold of Perception
artcritical
Justin Sterling reviews the recent exhibition Ad Reinhardt: Blue Paintings at David Zwirner Gallery. Sterling writes: “To see Ad Reinhardt’s paintings one must slow down the pace of everyday life. In the Blue Paintings … dating for the most part from 1950 to 1953, so much medium has been removed from the paint as to […]
Small Paintings from the Taft Collection
Aeqai
Jonathan Kamholtz reviews the recent exhibition Small Paintings from the Taft Collection at the Taft Museum of Art. Kamholtz writes: “As the exhibition notes suggest, there are all sorts of reasons for paintings being small. Some were originally devotional objects where it might matter that you can form an intimate attachment to an image. Some are […]
Cary Smith @ Fredricks & Freiser
James Kalm Report
James Kalm visits Cary Smith: New Paintings and Drawings at Fredricks & Freiser, New York, on view through November 18, 2017. Kalm notes: “For decades now, Cary Smith has maintained an austere compositional approach to abstraction, developing themes that he expounds on as if they were Euclidian axioms. Though this might sound dry and overly […]
Marcia Marcus @ Eric Firestone Gallery
Hyperallergic
John Yau reviews Marcia Marcus, Role Play: Paintings 1958 – 1973 at Eric Firestone Gallery, New York, on view through December 2, 2017. Yau writes: “Between 1958 and ’73, the period covered by the exhibition, Marcus achieved something as singular and powerful as any of her more celebrated male counterparts, including Alex Katz and Philip […]
The Radical Paintings of Laura Owens
The New Yorker
Peter Schjeldahl writes about the work of Laura Owens. A mid-career retrospective of Owens’ work will be on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York from November 10, 2017 – February 4, 2018. Schjeldahl concludes: “[Owens] is a genius of revelations, along the lines of that premise. She revealed twenty years ago, and […]
Soutine’s Portraits @ the Courtauld
Evening Standard
Matthew Collings reviews Soutine’s Portraits: Cooks, Waiters & Bellboys at the Courtauld Gallery, London, on view through January 21, 2018. Collings rites: “What things are and how they are treated, whether a body or a bellboy’s buttons, seem to obey purely abstract laws, as if it’s the paint that wants to do it and not […]
Cézanne’s Radical Portraiture
Apollo Magazine
John Elderfield writes about Cézanne Portraits, an exhibition he curated, on view at the National Portrait Gallery, London through February 11, 2018. Elderfield writes that “the content of these paintings matters. One reason, I think, why there has never previously been a survey of Cézanne’s portraits is that his reputation, as it developed in the […]
Jennifer Packer @ The Renaissance Society
Frieze Magazine
Jennifer Piejko reviews Jennifer Packer: Tenderheaded at the Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, on view through November 5, 2017. Piejko notes that “Packer’s beautifully restrained paintings create a safe space in which to consider questions of mortality, subjectivity and belonging.”
Nicolas Carone: Visualizing the Imaginary and Unseen
Hyperallergic
Carter Ratcliff reviews Nicolas Carone: Imaginary Portraits at Loretta Howard Gallery (through October 28)and The Thing Unseen: A Centennial Celebration of Nicolas Carone, organized by Ro Lohin, at the New York Studio School (closed). Ratcliff notes that “The Studio School catalog is prefaced by one of Carone’s precepts: ‘The process is to draw the thing […]
Michael Berryhill and Evan Nesbit
Whitehot Magazine
David Ambrose reviews Michael Berryhill: a window, adore at Kate Werble Gallery and Evan Nesbit: Cellophane Grip at Van Doren Waxter Gallery (both on view through through October 28, 2017). Ambrose writes: “… each artist tries to thread the needle of contemporary painting: Berryhill working diligently on top of the threads, while Nesbit works from […]
Patrick Berran @ Chapter NY
Hyperallergic
Stephen Maine reviews works by Patrick Berran at Chapter NY, on view through October 28, 2017. Maine writes: “All works are untitled, done in acrylic and toner on panel, and dated 2017. The fine points of Berran’s complex technique are probably not relevant, but it may be helpful to know that the gel transfers and […]
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 […]
Thomas Trosch @ Fredericks & Freiser
Art in America
Eric Sutphin reviews the recent exhibition Thomas Trosch: Paintings: New And Old at Fredericks & Freiser, New York. Sutphin writes: “Trosch has mastered the art of suggestion: one gets a sense of the ages and affects of the figures through dashes and globs of paint. He accomplishes the difficult task of marrying subject matter and […]
Robert Motherwell: Early Paintings
artcritical
Megan Kincaid reviews Robert Motherwell: Early Paintings at Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, on view through October 28, 2017. Kincaid writes: “… Kasmin tackles a body of work that has been overshadowed by Motherwell’s critically lauded early explorations into collage and automatic drawing. Despite the commercial appeal of paintings and their prominence in Motherwell’s later career, […]
Power Color: Peter Saul at Mary Boone
Peter Saul has met the enemy and it’s us, and imparts this discomfort beautifully.
Expressionism Revisited
Painting Perceptions
John Goodrich reviews Crossroads: Lynette Lombard, David Paulson, and Thaddeus Radell at Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, on view through October 8, 2017. Goodrich writes: “Lombard’s paintings are unpopulated by human figures, and also appear to be anchored in immediate observations – though these are heightened by twisting, vertiginous plunges of space. Despite such distortions, Lombard’s sure sense […]
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 […]
Rachel Rickert at E.TAY Gallery
artcritical
Roman Kalinovski reviews Rachel Rickert: The Ins and Outs at E.TAY Gallery, New York, on view through October 7, 2017. Kalinovski writes: “The strange pleasure that comes from visual frustration is a recurring theme in this exhibition. While Soft Boundaries and Verge present its two extremes with the curtain drawn and closed, respectively, and the […]
Alberto Giacometti and Alice Neel
The Nation
Barry Schwabsky investigates connections between the portrait paintings of Alberto Giacometti and those of Alice Neel. Schwabsky observes: “Although Neel and Giacometti both emerged from a left that was aligned with communism, neither one produced anything in a social-realist vein. It would also be wrong to see their insistence on portraiture as an acceptance of individualism. […]