A.M. Ekstrand reviews the exhibition Ellen Gallagher: Don’t Axe Me at the New Museum, New York, on view through September 15, 2013.

Ekstrand writes: "Gallagher has worked across a range of medias, from appropriated advertisements highlighting marginalized black imagery to paintings paying homage to the minimalism of Agnes Martin and the subtle repetition of Gertrude Stein. The exhibition begins with Gallagher’s early paintings from the 1990’s, using the signature bead-like eyes and enormous red lips of blackface performance, abstracting them as a series and variation… Gallagher’s newest paintings [are] images on the verge of abstraction by scraping away layers of red and pink foundations, and using ink to enhance silhouettes and forms of the canvases that are all of the same size and format. Some look like coral, or worm-like organisms, another features a bird perching on a branch."