Patrick Neal reports on a conversation among Jordan Kantor, Amy Sillman, and Peter Doig about contemporary painting and the art of Chagall, on the occasion of the exhibition Marc Chagall: Love, War and Exile at The Jewish Museum, New York, on view through February 2, 2014. Neal writes that "Doig and Sillman both admitted that
Robert Linsley considers the spatial possibilities that eighteenth century ceiling painting might offer contemporary abstract painting. Linsley writes that "Tiepolo is a conduit back to the rich history of ceiling painting, which turns out to be more important for abstraction than we might expect... Pictorial problems of the eighteenth century become pictorial possibilities of the
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Ryan McLaughlin: Raisins at Laurel Gitlen, New York, on view through December 22, 2013. Butler writes: "Hovering between still life and abstraction, the charming yet dour small-scale paintings [by McLaughlin at the 2012 Frieze Art Fair, NY] featured a minimal, greyed-down palette and shallow space. In 'Raisins,' his solo
Clare Britt interviews painter Susan Bee, whose work was recently on view in the exhibition The Sacred and Profane Love Machine at Ortega y Gasset Projects, Ridgewood, Queens. Bee writes: "I am inspired by folk art and indeed the interactions between the individuals in the paintings are influenced by my love of color and expressive
Photo blog of an exhibition of paintings by Patricia Treib at Wallspace, New York, on view through December 21, 2013. The gallery press release notes that: "Treib’s true subject is the process of looking, through which she discovers new relationships while dismantling what is merely recognizable. Treib focuses on the space between forms, making in-betweenness
Nadiah Fellah reviews the recent exhibition Shelley Reed: In Dubious Battle at Danese Corey Gallery, New York. Fellah writes: "Reed’s mural-sized paintings evoke the work of realist French or Dutch paintings from a bygone era—although at a slight removal given their monochromatic palettes... By challenging the ideas of originality, Reed prompts viewers to question what
James Kalm visits the exhibition Richard Timperio: Color Me Gone at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, Brooklyn, on view through December 22, 2013. Kalm notes that "As a fan of 'Car Culture,' and classic Rock-n-Roll, Timperio's paintings have all the punch of a top fuel dragster, or the amplified urgency of a three cord riff. Using watered-down
Matthew Collings conducts a fictional "interview" with painter Hilma Af Klint. Colling's Af Klint notes: "if you’re a painter you spend a lot of time getting things right, getting forms to be efficient so that whatever you’re hoping to get across can have a chance of being coherent, of actually communicating to someone. You’re basically
Emil Robinson reviews the exhibition Degas, Renoir, and Poetic Pastels at the Cincinnati Art Museum, on view through January 19, 2014. Robinson writes that "the real treasures in the show come from the hand of Degas. Here we see five fine works, all depicting the ballet. These pieces appear both ancient and startlingly modern: ancient
Michael Bilsborough reviews the exhibition Benjamin Degen: Shadow, Ripple and Reflection at Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, on view through December 7, 2013. Bilsborough writes that "Degen gives us new paintings of figures that look life-size, built from impasto techniques that seem to weave fibers of pure color, while using hue and space to deliver
John Yau reviews the exhibition Peter Young: Linear Weave (Vertical Fold) Paintings: 1980–1983 at Algus Greenspon, New York, on view through December 21, 2013. Yau writes that "the 'Linear Weave (Vertical Fold)' paintings are not in the least pictorial. They are dense, non-hierarchical, informational fields made up of a simple abstract language, whose geometric combinations
Isla Leaver-Yap writes about the work of Lucy McKenzie, whose paintings are currently on view in the exhibition Painting Now: Five Contemporary Artists at Tate Britain, London (through February 9, 2014). "Largely comprising portraits, still lifes, scaled architectural elevations and installations," Leaver-Yap notes, "McKenzie’s body of work could be formally characterised as representational painting: the
Marina Vaizey reviews the exhibition Stanley Spencer: Heaven in a Hell of War at Somerset House, London, on view through January 26, 2014. Vaizey writes that the venue "provides an unrepeatable experience, as we are able to see the newly restored paintings close up in bright light, appreciate the dizzying changes of scale, and the
Painter Alan Feltus discusses the elusive nature of meaning in his painting 2004 Summer. Feltus comments: "I tend to focus on the underlying structure, or composition, of my paintings and how I work with that intuitively, not basing the structure on any traditional systems. Composition has always been very important to me. What one can
Jackie Wullschlager reviews the exhibition Turner and the Sea on view at the National Maritime Museum, London (through April 21 2014) and the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts (May 31 - September 1, 2014). Wullschlager writes: "Vortex-like compositions, suggesting history’s repetitions as doomed cycles of catastrophe and of man sucked to his fate recur in
John Haber reviews a recent exhibition of works by Eugene J. Martin at ASC Projects - Gallery 304, New York. Haber writes: "If this is portraiture, its real subject is painting. And painting here begins and ends with abstraction. It includes the enigmatic touches of color in place of a face, the spare horizontals of
Claudia Böse interviews painter Marguerite Horner about her work and career. Horner comments: "The hardest thing is getting the image in your head, this is why once its worked out small, once I’ve decided its worked on that scale, after that it is just a process, an interesting process, because you are just interested in
Eleanor Ray examines the "temporary equilibrium" achieved in great painting. In particular Ray discusses this quality in the work of Philip Guston, Stanley Lewis, and Giorgio Morandi. Morandi, she writes, "brings painting to the edge of representation, painting objects so simple that they are nearly reduced to shapes and lines, but never are. He locates
Paul Corio reviews an exhibition of late paintings by Willem de Kooning at Gagosian Gallery, New York, on view through December 21, 2013. Corio asserts: "De Kooning’s late work seems to me to be a particularly fertile example for the contemporary abstract painter, not stylistically per se, but in terms of permissiveness. It is largely
Mostafa Heddaya talks with Peter Selz about art, politics, and the paintings of Yisrael K. Feldsott on view in the exhibition Cries, Chants, Shouts and Whispers: Songs of the Forgotten at Studio Vendome, New York, through November 23, 2013. Selz comments that he appreciates Feldsott's "combination of rawness. And the subjects he chooses are raw