Jason Stopa reviews two painting exhibitions, Materiality and Grid List, both at Allegra LaViola Gallery, New York, on view through April 21, 2012. Stopa writes that the exhibitions "comprise two strains of abstraction whose barriers are quickly disappearing. And judging by the prevalent use of non-traditional mediums, supports and surfaces-many of these artists fall outside
Yevgeniya Traps visits the studio of painter Terry Winters. Winters notes: "I’ve always tried to define parameters for the drawings or paintings according to some organizing principle. It can be anything from an idea about acoustic space to the color range of a particular pigment. The goal is to construct a picture that is autonomous
Amanda Valdez talks to painter Jonathan Lasker about his early work, recently on view at Cheim & Read, New York. Lasker notes that his paintings "relate to the light of nature. They are, in a way, abstract landscapes. But even in 3 Card Monte the blue and lavender are pretty close in value and really
Lilly Lampe speaks with painter Judy Ledgerwood about her work. Ledgerwood explains: "I decided that the most interesting thing I could do would be to work flat and to make paintings that were extremely flat but that would project out into the space and to try to address the architectural space, because the space in
Simon Bayliss interviews painter Gabriella Boyd about her work and process. Boyd notes: "It’s important for me that the viewer believes in the space enough to imagine being in it. Normally I'll start with quite a solid structure, a much more realistic space, and then gradually break away from that... For my belief in a
To introduce his article on the "the visual anxiety that American painters feel when confronted with the European visual traditions," Mark Stone posts a revealing (and poignant) video of Clement Greenberg discussing Jackson Pollock's anxiety about whether his all-over drip technique was really "Painting." Stone proposes that Pollock's inner-struggle is one that continues to affect
Dr Janet McKenzie reviews the recent exhibition Lucian Freud: Drawings at Blain Southern, London. The exhibition will be on view at Acquavella Galleries, New York from April 30 - June 9, 2012. McKenzie writes: "One is struck first by the remarkable virtuosity of the young artist from the early works on show. The unadorned subject,
Sarah Kirk Hanley writes about the exhibition Götterdämmerung at the Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, New York, on view through May 12, 2012. Kirk Hanley writes: "Schutz’s own extravagantly creative and somewhat outlandish imagination, as well as her exuberantly gestural style, is well-matched to Wagner's outsized narrative and grandiloquent score. Yet the artist took
James Kalm visits the exhibition of new paintings by Ron Gorchov at Cheim & Read, New York, on view through April 28, 2012. Kalm notes "in the late sixties that Gorchov devised his unique painting support, often referred to as a 'saddle shape.' The use of this convex surface was a refutation of Clement Greenberg's
In part two of a three part post about painter Sylvia Plimack Mangold, John Yau looks at Plimack Mangold's "shift from interiors to landscapes." In these works, Yau maintains, Plimack Mangold continues to "paint only what she observes, but with more rigorous parameters than simply investigating her immediate circumstances. Her subject matter will never suggest
On the occasion of his upcoming exhibition at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects (on view from April 26 – May 27, 2012), painter Stuart Shils talks with Nikolai Fox. Shils notes: "The thing that I've been dangling in front of myself in the last couple of years has been the prospect of understanding how to
On the occasion of the exhibition Lines Crossed: Grids + Rhythms on Paper at The Courtauld Gallery, London, Sam Cornish reflects on abstract art's on-going relationship to the grid. The exhibtion centrepiece, Cornish writes, "is a large abstract drawing by Linda Karshan but the rest is more strictly historical, stretching back to the sixteenth century...
Jason Stopa interviews painter Katherine Bradford on the occasion of her upcoming exhibition of recent work at Edward Thorp Gallery, New York, on view from April 19 – May 26, 2012. Bradford notes that "This may be a good time to be doing paintings that appear human or have a humanity that maybe a decade
Valerie Brennan interviews painter Henry Samelson about his work and process. Samelson notes: "Drawing is important to my painting. But there is reciprocity between them with ideas/influence flowing back and forth. I work on a lot of paintings at the same time with dialogue between them as well. Everything plays off of everything else... Departures
Jean Manuel Beauchamp interviews painter John Zinsser.
John Goodrich reviews the exhibition Susanna Coffey: Nocturnes at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York, on view through April 22, 2012. This show, Goodrich writes, "concentrates on another, little-known facet of [Coffey's] work: the tiny, nocturnal cityscapes and landscapes—rarely larger than 8 inches across—that the artist has been producing for at least 15 years
Karen Tauches reviews the exhibition Mandala: Sacred Circle in Tibetan Buddhism at Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, on view through April 15, 2012. Tauches writes the mandala's "complexity and repetition of detail are overwhelming. One's attention is repeatedly sidetracked, suspended, and sucked toward seemingly endless labyrinths and crossroads. Artists thus simulate a supernatural state,
James Kalm visits the exhibition Stanley Whitney: Left to Right at Team Gallery, New York, on view through April 28, 2012. Kalm notes that Whitney's "approach to color and rhythm are akin to the spontaneous riffs of great jazz solos. With this latest exhibition, Stanley shows three major paintings that show his ability to extend
Jed Lipinski visits with artist Bob Witz on the occasion of the exhibition Bob Witz: I Know Where I am Goin' at the New York Studio School, on view through April 16, 2012. Lipinski writes that "If such a thing as an outsider artist still exists in New York City, Bob Witz may well be
Lauren O'Neill-Butler interviews poet Franck André Jamme about the history of abstract Tantric painting from Rajasthan, India. Tantric paintings, O'Neill-Butler writes, "resonate uncannily with lineages of twentieth-century art—from the Bauhaus and Russian Constructivism to Minimalism—as well as with much painting today." Jamme comments that these affinities "could mean that our notion of progress - past,