Reviews
Graham Nickson: Light and Geometry
Hyperallergic
Karen Wilkin reviews Graham Nickson: Light and Geometry at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, on view through December 22, 2018. Wilkin writes: “The canvases and watercolors [Nickson] has produced over the years — of flamboyant sunrises and feverish sunsets — address themes that most committed modernists would either scorn or find too frightening to tackle. […]
Impressionists in London @ Tate Britain
Studio International
Francesca Wade reviews Impressionists in London at Tate Britain, on view through May 7, 2018. Wade writes: “In 1904, 37 of [Claude Monet’s] pictures – splendidly evocative hazes of red and blue – were shown in Paris in an exhibition called Views of the Thames. Eight of these works form the centrepiece of this Tate exhibition, […]
Tom McGlynn: Liberating Geometric Shapes
Two Coats of Paint
Sharon Butler reviews Tom McGlynn: Station / Decal / Survey at Rick Wester Fine Arts, New York, on view through December 23, 2017. Butler writes: “The shapes [in McGlynn’s paintings] aren’t symbolic, and they don’t conjure a discrete narrative about internal relationships. But they do provide some evidence of this artist’s specific intention and process. His very […]
Dana Schutz: Building the Boat While Painting
The Nation
Barry Schwabsky reviews an exhibition of works by Dana Schutz at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and subsequently reflects on Schutz’s controversial painting of Emmett Till shown in the recent Whitney Biennial. Schwabsky observes: “It’s in the gap between what can be imagined and what can be represented that art’s capacity for surprise is […]
Murillo: The Self-Portraits @ the Frick
Apollo Magazine
Louise Nicholson reviews Murillo: The Self-Portraits at the Frick Collection, New York, on view through February 4, 2018. Nicholson writes: “The Frick self-portrait … dominates one room. Viewers must use their imaginations to enliven the now dismal background colour: Murillo’s intended airy blue sky is gone due to the degradation of the smalt pigment he […]
Ying Li @ Gross McCleaf Gallery
Broad Street Review
Lev Feigin reviews Ying Li: Sojourn at Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, on view through November 25, 2017. Feigin writes that Li’s paintings “evoke pictorial spaces: vistas on a Swiss lake; autumn mountains near Telluride, Colorado; docked boats on the Maine coast. But come closer and you enter the ridged, luminous labyrinths of her pigments projected over […]
Syd Solomon @ Berry Campbell
Whitehot Magazine
Jonathan Goodman reviews a recent exhibition of works by Syd Solomon at Berry Campbell, New York. Goodman writes that Solomon “opens up a genuine understanding of the abstract-expressionist movement—we see the art and not the painter overwhelming the art. The vertical work called Summer Spell (1985), with its skeins and wisps of color—white, yellow, blur, […]
Wayne Thiebaud @ Allan Stone Projects
Hamptons Art Hub
Sally Grant reviews Wayne Thiebaud: Land Survey at Allan Stone Projects, New York, on view through December 23, 2017. Grant writes: “Thiebaud has frequently revisited certain motifs over the course of his long career and has mastered their painterly enticement. Whether the subject is a cake or a cloud, the artist’s consummate rendering seduces the […]
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 […]