Abstraction

Emily Mason: Tone Control
The New Yorker

Jackson Arn reviews Emily Mason: The Thunder Hurried Slow at Miles McEnery Gallery, New York. Arn observes: “Working your way from the left to the right side of the small, square ‘Like Some Old Fashioned Miracle’ (1972-74), you first find bright yellow and blue cheek to cheek with hunter green, simple as two plus three […]

James Brooks reconsidered
Two Coats of Paint

Laurie Fendrich reviews James Brooks: A Painting is a Real Thing, curated by Dr. Klaus Ottmann on view at The Parrish Art Museum from August 6–October 15, 2023. Fendrich writes: “On the rare occasions I’ve encountered Brooks’s paintings, I’ve paid them scant attention. Like many, I have walked on by, presumptively ranking him well below […]

Ed Clark: The Big Sweep
Brooklyn Rail

Charles Moore reviews Ed Clark: The Big Sweep, on view at Hauser & Wirth, New York from September 7– October 21, 2023. Moore notes that “the exhibition, titled The Big Sweep, —named for the artist’s revolutionary use of the push broom as paintbrush—examines how Clark worked at the frontiers of abstract expressionism, experimenting with materiality […]

On Hans Hofmann & Nicolas de Staël
The New Criterion

Dana Gordon links the evolution of Hans Hofmann’s abstract expressionist paintings of the 1950s to the influence of Nicolas de Staël, whose work was prominent and popular in New York galleries at that time. Gordon asserts: “Both Hofmann and de Staël championed the life of abstract forms, the communicative presence of the material of paint, […]

Evan Fugazzi @ Gross McCleaf
Hyperallergic

Stan Mir reviews an exhibition of new paintings by Evan Fugazzi at Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, on view through March 30, 2019. Mir observes: “Color has become the driving force of [Fugazzi’s] work. His aesthetic commitment calls to mind Stanley Whitney, who has continued to distinguish himself as a ‘call and response’ painter. As the elder painter describes […]

Donald Martiny: Interview
Whitehot Magazine

Noah Becker interviews painter Donald Martiny about his work. Discussing the germination of the ideas that inform his current work Martiny recalls: “A turning point occurred one day in the studio a little over a decade ago while I was starting a new painting—a de Kooning kind of gestural study.  I had painted a single brushstroke […]

Charline von Heyl: Interview
Brooklyn Rail

Raphael Rubinstein interviews painter Charline von Heyl whose exhibition Charline von Heyl: Snake Eyes will be on view at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. from November 8, 2018 through January 27, 2019. Von Heyl remarks: “At the root of my painting is the line. As an outline, line defines a shape. In repetition, line creates […]

Peter Plagens: Interview
New City Art

Alan Pocaro talks to painter and critic Peter Plagens whose show, The Age of Innocence: Abstract Paintings by Peter Plagens, was recently on view at the Farmer Family Gallery at The Ohio State University at Lima. Pocaro notes that: “If the project of our lives is to integrate the many conflicting aspects of self into a […]

Abstraction with a Political Conscience
Hyperallergic

Gwenaël Kerlidou examines the career of Olivier Mosset. Kerlidou concudes: “The critique of the art system has often been done from a neo-conceptual standpoint, but rarely from a painting standpoint, since painting has been the standard scapegoat of the conceptual critique. In both cases, however, the objects produced can never be seen simply literally: no […]

Peter Halley: Interview
Brooklyn Rail

Tom McGlynn interviews painter Peter Halley on the occasion of a new installation of Halley’s work at Lever House entitled New York, New York. Halley remarks: “I just don’t think the power of abstraction is going away. Our whole cultural universe is built on abstraction, beginning with the abstraction that is money. But in the twentieth […]

David Row @ Loretta Howard
artcritical

Peter Malone reviews David Row: Counter Clockwise at Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, on view through October 20, 2018. Malone writes: “Considering much of current abstract painting’s focus on spontaneity and one-off effects, Row’s tendency to revisit abstract elements embraced by earlier painters—not just Noland but Ellsworth Kelly, Dorothea Rockburne and Al Held, with whom […]

Amy Sillman: Interview
Apollo Magazine

Imelda Barnard interviews painter Amy Sillman on the occasion of her exhibition Landline at Camden Arts Centre, London, on view through January 6, 2019. Sillman remarks: “I feel like I’m working with and against [painting] equally. The piece I’m making for Gallery 3 is structurally ambivalent, it has two sides that are printed on the […]

Sharon Butler @ Theodore:Art
Hyperallergic

Paul D’Agostino reviews Sharon Butler: New Paintings at Theodore:Art, Bushwick, Brooklyn, on view through October 7, 2018. D’Agostino notes that Butler’s new paintings are based on selections from daily iPad drawings that “readily became not merely an ersatz sketchbook, but also a journal. What’s more, given the textureless surface and inverted, in a sense, light […]

Patrick Heron @ Tate St. Ives
AbCrit

Geoff Hands reviews works by Patrick Heron at Tate St Ives, on view through September 30, 2018. Hands writes: “Heron’s work is often distinguished by its example of colour-shape dexterity and glorious visuality and a chronological display may not have accommodated or extended the potential impact of his achievements. The visual dynamism of the paintings, from all […]

Ellen Berkenblit: Interview
Sound & Vision Podcast

Brian Alfred talks to painter Ellen Berkenblit. Berkenblit comments: “If I let myself do what I naturally do physically, with a canvas, there are elements that are continuous. They’re like a diary, they keep morphing, they change. And they also become a springboard for paint and color mixing which is something that makes my heart […]

Dona Nelson: In Conversation
Brooklyn Rail

Leeza Meksin interviews painter Dona Nelson whose exhibition Stand Alone Paintings is on view at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College through August 12, 2018. Nelson remarks: “I am interested when architecture does not dominate the experience of the paintings. Maybe one of the strategies of Pollock and Still making such big paintings was […]

Ewelina Bochenska: Interview
Painter's Bread

Michael Rutherford interviews painter Ewelina Bochenska. Bochenska remarks: “Painting is the most difficult thing there is, yet it is so magical and mysterious, almost miraculous. It is about liberation, freedom. Freedom from oneself and freedom from the known. It reminds me of a book by Jiddu Krishnamurti of the same title ‘Freedom from the Known’. […]

Etel Adnan: Interview
Apollo Magazine

Gabriel Coxhead interviews artist and poet Etel Adnan whose work is on view at the Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, through October 7, 2018. Adnan remarks: “If I were just a painter, maybe my work would have been different, more encompassing. But my writing is rather pessimistic, because of the angle of history I got involved with, being […]

Al Held in Paris: 1952-53
Brooklyn Rail

Tom McGlynn reviews Al Held in Paris: 1952-53 at Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York, on view through June 15, 2018. McGlynn begins: “Al Held moved to Paris in the early 1950s where he was part of a loose-knit expatriate community of American painters that included Joan Mitchell and Sam Francis. Mitchell, Francis and Held all […]

Tomma Abts @ the Serpentine Gallery
The Guardian

Adrian Searle reviews works by Tomma Abts at the Serpentine Gallery, London, on view through September 9, 2018. Searle writes: “Someone once said Abts’ work reminded them of wallpaper designs from East Germany. The paintings flirt with a kind of datedness. They do not quite belong to their moment. They are hard to place. This is […]