Betsy Lewis blogs about the exhibtion Flower of the Prairie: George Grosz in Dallas at the Dallas Museum of Art, on view through August 19, 2012. Lewis writes: "While earlier works are sharply outlined satires of darkening German politics, Grosz adopted a style for the Dallas series that's thrilled to be dancing, dressing up, and
A. Bregman blogs about the exhibition Alice Neel: Late Portraits & Still Lifes at David Zwirner, New York, on view through June 23, 2012. Bregman writes that Neel's "depictions are at once traditionally representational and non-traditionally provocative, with the images of her neighbors, friends, family, and other New Yorkers portrayed in a way that questions
Courtney J. Martin interviews painter Frank Bowling. Bowling recalls "I was engaged with all those people, especially Newman. He turned the Mark Rothko shape on its side. You had to have permission to get past Newman. It was like a wall, so I thought you should open it up, open up the surface. My poured
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting visit the studio of painter Nick Lamia whose exhibition Nick Lamia: Coppice is on view at Jason McCoy Gallery, New York through June 29, 2012. Lamia notes: "I'm trying to come up with imagery that is successfully combining technology and ecology and doing that by trying to combine geometric and
Barry Schwabsky reflects on two recent exhibitions: Stanley Whitney: Left to Right at Team Gallery and Jacqueline Humphries at Greene Naftali Gallery. Schwabsky writes: "For a long time.. the abstract painter had to negotiate the anxiety that he might be doing or showing too little; more recently he has also had to worry about doing
Naoko Takahatake blogs about the exhibition Whistler’s Etchings: An Art of Suggestion at LACMA, on view through July 22, 2012. Takahatake writes: "Whistler was disparaged as 'an artist of incomplete performance,' his Venice etchings having been 'done with a swiftness and dash that preclude anything like care and finish.'While many of the prints on view
Robert Boyd reviews the exhibition HJ Bott: Rhythm & Rhetoric at Anya Tish Gallery, Houston, TX, on view through June 9, 2012. Boyd writes: " 'Displacement of Volume' or DoV is a geometric form that has been appearing in Bott's paintings and sculptural objects since 1972... beyond whatever meaning that DoV has for Bott, it
James Kalm visits the exhibition Michael Berryhill: Incidental Western at Kansas Gallery, New York, on view through June 23, 2012. Kalm notes that "Constructing his pictures from a mélange of early Modernist and Metaphysical styles representing the nescient phase of Surrealism, Berryhill scrapes and overworks the pictures until the have the luster of scrimshaw. Imagery
Paul Behnke photo blogs a visit to the studio of painter James Erikson. Behnke writes: "Erikson makes quiet, yet insistent paintings - process oriented, oil on canvas, works that linger in the mind of the viewer, demanding interpretation. In the same way a passage of music can seem familiar, though it has never been heard,
Elisabeth Condon photoblogs a visit to several painting shows currently on view in Chelsea including: Dana Schutz: Piano in the Rain at Friedrich Petzel, Five by Five: Tom Burckhardt, Carrie Moyer, Kanishka Raja, Jane South, and Sarah Walker (Curated by Barbara Takenaga) at DC Moore Gallery, Jutta Koether at Bortolami, Chuck Webster at ZieherSmith, and
Peter Acheson writes about the exhibition David Paulson: Recent Works at Jonathan Burden LLC, New York, on view through June 23, 2012. Acheson writes that Paulson "wants to shoulder the weights carried by Cubism, DeChirico, DeKooning, Soutine and Guston one more time before their issues are deemed irrevelant to the contemporary dialogue. He is confronting
John Yau considers the work of Thomas Nozkowski on the occasion of the exhibition New Editions and Related Drawings at Senior & Shopmaker Gallery, New York, on view through June 16. Yau writes: "if [Nozkowski] likes a motif in a painting that he's working on, but knows it has to go, he will move it
Raphael Rubinstein reviews a recent exhibition of paintings by Geoff Hippenstiel at Devin Borden Gallery, Houston. Rubinstein writes: "Although brushwork is evident on close inspection-something these paintings brazenly solicit - Hippenstiel's tool of choice is the palette knife, supplemented to great effect with the unlikely method of spray gun. I say 'unlikely' because spray paint
An essay by Ed Schad about Cy Twombly: The Last Paintings at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, on view through June 9, 2012. Schad writes: "Camino Real is a 1948 play by Tennessee Williams... and when it comes to entering into a dialogue with the works at Gagosian, reading the text can be illuminating... On the
James Kalm visits the exhibition Faust and Other Tales: The Paintings of Jan Müller at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York, on view through June 23, 2012. Kalm notes: "Considered as an exotic and tragic figure with a cult following, during his brief career, Müller was generally recognized as the first of the Hans Hofmann
Piri Halasz reviews the recent exhibition Adolph Gottlieb: Gravity, Suspension, Motion: Paintings 1954-1972 at Pace Gallery, New York. Halasz writes: "Irving Sandler, in his trail-blazing 'Triumph of American Painting' (1970) recognized that Gottlieb was important enough to rate a major entry, but couldn't really shoehorn him into either of his two categories of 'action painters'
Daniel Brown reflects on the still life painting of Sheldon Tapley. Brown writes: "... Tapley loves to 'pack' his compositions - reminding us that he matured under the aegis of Abstract Expressionism. Working in the realist idiom challenged him to flatten the pictorial space to make an object seem 'present,' a tactic he learned from
Sam Cornish considers the collages of Francis Davison on view at Austin/Desmond, London through May 31, 2012. Cornish writes: "Across media the presence of collage can be felt in startlingly inexplicable presentation and dissonant juxtaposition. [Francis] Davison differs in that the separate elements in his collages worked toward coherence rather than dislocation. His aim, aided
Carl Belz considers the challenges of painting the figure and examines the work of Kyle Staver and Anne Harris. Belz writes: "Of all the subjects available to painting, subjects ranging from stripes and squares to fields of color, from landscape vistas and city streets to ordinary objects close at hand, none is brought to the
Valerie Brennan interviews painter Brian Cypher about his work and studio practice. Cypher notes: "On an existential level, it really begins with the impulse to create… the wanting of ideas to be actualized; to see that energy manifest into physical form... In terms of what I do physically, it's all about making marks that echo