Phoebe Hoban reviews an exhibition of paintings by Chantal Joffe at Cheim & Read, New York, on view through June 22, 2012. Hoban writes: "The in-your-face impact of [Joffe's] paintings comes as much from scale as technique. These are big blowups of women, exaggerated and poster-like. There is no visible brushwork or impasto - instead
Thomas Micchelli reviews the exhibition Lucian Freud: Drawings at Acquavella Galleries, New York, on view through June 9, 2012. Micchelli writes: "Freud, who prided himself on his draftsmanship, stopped drawing [in 1958], and didn't pick it up again until years later... The earlier works are not attempts 'at a record,' as the artist described his
Cuillin Bantock writes about the paintings of Geoffrey Rigden on view at Poussin Gallery, London, through June 30, 2012. Bantock writes that "Rigden, for all his cool, has a razor-sharp awareness of the massive constraints which define a painting, that a painting has only three realities: area (surface plus edge), chroma and facture. The rest
Steven Alexander visits the exhibition Julian Jackson: Crossing at Kathryn Markel Gallery, New York, on view through June 16, 2012. Alexander writes: "The title calls attention to the grid which in these new paintings assumes a more prominent role, echoing not only the edges of the square formats, but beyond that, the architectural environment to
Libby Rosof interviews painter Douglas Witmer about his work and process. Witmer comments: that: "My approach is completely additive. ...I tried to find a way of painting where I couldn’t touch it–so I was dropping color with a turkey baster, kind of like color fields. ...Could I just know what my choices are going to
Lily Koto Olive reviews the exhibition Alice Neel: Late Portaits & Still Lifes at David Zwirner Gallery, New York, on view through June 23, 2012. Olive writes that "the interior lives of [Neel's] subjects peer out at us from within their surfaces. Neel's uncanny ability to capture her subjects psychological states in the moments they
As part of their coverage of Bushwick Open Studios, Paddy Johnson and Whitney Kimball visit the studio of painter Tatiana Berg and interview her about her work. Asked about her three-dimensional "tent" paintings Berg comments: "My tent-paintings arose from a curiosity wondering what a painting looked like broken open, its interior structures and materials exposed.
Preview of paintings from the exhibition Lauren Luloff: Dark Interiors & Bright Landscapes at Halsey McKay, East Hampton, on view from June 1 - 19, 2012. "Richly layered, complex activity propels the construction of these works as the artist layers bleach-stained bed sheets, muslin, transparent fabric and varying viscosities of oil paint. Luloff's paintings are
A conversation with Sharon Butler, Allison Manch and Robert Yoder on the occasion of two exhibitions: Squeeze Hard (Hold That Thought) work by Sharon Butler and Allison Manch at SEASON (through June 30, 2012) and Robert Yoder: DILF! at Platform Gallery (through June 16, 2012). Both galleries are located in Seattle, Washington. Of the works
James Kalm visits the exhibition Nicole Eisenman, Woodcuts, Etchings, Lithographs and Monotypes at Leo Koenig, New York, on view through June 30, 2012. Kalm notes that "this show reveals an abiding attachment and pursuit of, the grand tradition of classic printmaking. While the monotypes display a very painterly sensibility. Eisenman's etchings and lithographs highlight the
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting visit the studio of painter Elizabeth Gourlay. Of her paintings Gourlay writes: "The work is a meditation on color and form. The drawings and paintings emerge from a gradual yet progressive layering that leads to a complex network of shifting shapes and colors. The shapes and lines create my own
On the occasion of the opening of the new Barnes Foundation musuem in Philadelphia, Jed Perl re-reads The Art of Painting and The Art of Renoir by Dr. Albert C. Barnes. Both books, Perl writes "have a blunt, evangelical force; they’re textbooks dedicated to transcendent values, written at a time when Barnes, a friend and
David Cohen reviews the exhibition Katherine Bradford: New Work at Edward Thorp Gallery, on view through June 9, 2012. Cohen writes that in Bradford's work "there is the peculiar poetic charm of provisional painting – a sense of blah, of nonchalance, of not quite caring about the slapdash, scruffy, Brooklyn-esque 'work in progress' look. But,
Max Estenger visits the studio of painter Mary Jones. Estenger writes that Jones' recent painting "are her most muscular paintings with form and mass dominating where once thin washes of paint predominated. Her introduction a few years ago of spray paint is now incorporated seamlessly and some of the schematic ghosts from her earliest work
Phillis Ideal reviews the recent exhibition Ronald Bladen: New York Paintings, 1955-1962 at Loretta Howard Gallery, New York. "Bladen never loses sight of this basic intuition that reflects the history of the exploration in art. This is sophisticated work that transcends formal concerns. It has the connectedness of a child making a sand castle, intuitively
Thomas Micchelli considers Frank Stella's early and new work on view in two exhibitions Frank Stella: Black, Aluminum and Copper Paintings at L&M Arts (through June 2, 2012) and Frank Stella: New Work at Freedman Art (through September 27, 2012). Micchelli writes that Stella's assertion 'What you see is what you see' is a comment
Larry Groff posts an extensive tribute to painter George Nick to accompany the exhibition Galvanized Truth: A Tribute to George Nick, featuring 37 of Nick's colleagues and students, Curated by Kim Alemian, on view at The Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, Massachusetts through September 9, 2012. Groff's post includes quotes from Nick's teaching as well
Sharon Butler visits the exhibition Ariel Dill: Oscillations at Southfirst Gallery, Williamsburg, on view through May 27, 2012. Butler writes: "Rather than hanging the paintings in a traditional white cube, Dill has painted the bottom half of the wall grey, referencing images of Gertrude Stein's salon and signalling a more intimate, less didactic approach. Rejecting
Ed Beem blogs about the exhibition Galvanized Truth: A Tribute to George Nick, featuring 37 of Nick's colleagues and students, on view at The Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, Massachusetts through September 9, 2012. Beem quotes painter Christopher Chippendale, who remarks that "Nick insisted that our painting be autonomous from the world they depicted, not
Jack Flam discusses the implications of Cézanne's "de-eroticized" approach to the figure in The Large Bathers (1906), part of the upcoming exhibition Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse: Visions of Arcadia at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on view from June 20, 2012 - September 3, 2012. Flam writes that "...Cézanne’s lack of finish created an extraordinarily suggestive