Odette Gregory reviews an exhibition of works by Julian Schnabel at The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, CT, on view through March 2014.

Gregory writes: "Wax paintings, plate paintings, works on paper, sculpture and works on novel materials like Kabuki screens are held together through conversation the pieces have with each other, rather than through a linearly progressive motif… Four massive plate 'landscapes' … operate like a 3D movie, where one’s presence before them in person is like the glasses one uses to see such a film. Without the viewer’s presence, description of the pieces (by word or photo) is incoherent or reductive. What can be said is that as Cubism is a mediation on physical reality from all sides, so too are these paintings. And as Cubism is philosophically related to simultaneity, challenging distinctions of specificity in space and time, through their vernacular and highly structured surfaces the plate works to evoke a sense of the universe and the universal."