Lucia Simek reviews the exhibition Forrest Bess 100Years: Paintings by Forrest and His Friends at Kirk Hopper Fine Art, Dallas, on view through October 23, 2011. The show includes paintings by Bess, Chuck Webster, Andrew Masullo, and Chris Martin. Simek writes: "Bess's work is powerful in its preciousness - aching with an intensity and fervor
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Tatiana Berg and Sarah Faux: Dank, at Tomkins Projects, Brooklyn, NY, on view through October 22, 2011. Along with installation photos, Butler notes that Berg and Faux "embrace a haphazard, accidental approach to painting in which 'stripes of spray-paint and globs of oil chase a perverse formalism to the
Vicki Schneider revels in the visceral qualities of the artist journal. She writes: "Reading the daily bric-a-brac of people's lives, where Manet bought his shoes before his duel with Duranty, who met Courbet for dinner at the Café Andler; these small curios of information plunge me into their world in a way that a biography
Nancy Princenthal reviews Chris Martin: Painting Big at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., on view through October 23, 2011. Princenthal asks: "Are these immersive fields of pure visual sensation, or narrative works meant to be considered, like conceptual art, at reading distance? Abstraction or figuration? Handmade originals or pastiches of photo-based imagery? Martin
Maria Seda-Reeder reviews Realms of Intimacy: Miniaturist Practice from Pakistan at the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, on view through January 22, 2012. Seda-Reeder writes that "the traditional practice of miniature creation is applied to contemporary non-miniature works. And as demonstrated by artists like Ambreen Butt in Realms of Intimacy, the
Franklin Einspruch reviews the recent exhibition Anne Neely: Mopang: Recent Work at Lohin Geduld Gallery. Einspruch writes that Neely's paintings "contemplate water, below the earth and above... The horizon line, often implicit in her work, became recognizable as a geographic distance... She has an extraordinary appetite for details, and details can overwhelm a composition with
Eric Sutphin reviews the exhibition Carrie Moyer: Canonical at CANADA Gallery, New York, on view through October 16, 2011. Sutphin writes: " Moyer's in-your-face compositional structures influenced by her engagement with agitprop and interest in Constructivist design give way to a kind of ambiguous space that feels extra terrestrial. These paintings are slow reads, petri
Dan Coombs responds to the exhibition Matter at APT Gallery, London, a show of artists whose works "display abstract qualities, have a strong material presence and use their own materiality as subject." Coombs considers "materiality as subject" in relation to the paintings of Robert Ryman, noting: "What for me is powerful about Ryman's work is
Joanne Mattera blogs about the exhibition Melissa Meyer: New Paintings and Watercolors at Lennon, Weinberg, on view through October 29. Mattera writes: "Meyer squeezes out a lot of color, saturated color, engaging the picture plane flat up against the surface as well as deep into the distance. I could look at them endlessly as they
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting pay a video studio visit to painter Sharon Horvath. Horvath remarks: "I think of painting as... a mineralization of my mind, temporary, as it's own kind of body..."
Judith H. Dobrzynski interviews Clyfford Still Museum director about the Still, who Sobel sees as the first Abstract Expressionist, as well as the initial exhibition plans for the museum's opening. Dobrzynski writes: "Mr. Sobel believes that the display will surprise even scholars: Some two-thirds of the paintings have never been exhibited and nearly no one
Paul Behnke posts about painter Paul Corvers. Behnke writes that Corvers' "work occupies a considered space between representation and abstraction that continually prompts memory and associations in the viewer. The use of gray is instrumental in the process, bringing a vague uncertianty to bear that allows for a mysterious, open interpretation."
Mario Naves reviews the exhibition Scott Malbaurn: Lean at at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, on view through November 13, 2011. Naves writes: "Mining high modernism for its rigor and clarity, Malbaurn uncovers nuances of pictorial form within circumscribed parameters. Make that seemingly circumscribed: Malbaurn's recent explorations of the chevron are proof that a given motif is
Valerie Brennan interviews Brooklyn painter Julie Torres about her work and process. "These days I mostly work on the floor, with acrylic on paper. I make a huge mess and try not to edit anything I do as I do it. If I have a good idea, I usually don't know about it till after
Hrag Vartanian interivews painter Loren Munk about his recent exhibition of paintings Location, Location, Location at Lesley Heller Workspace. Munk recalls "I realized there was a great big pile of material that could somehow be turned into paintings. I decided to take Ad Reinhardt's quip 'All art comes from art and nothing else' literally. It
Dr Janet McKenzie reviews the recent exhibition RB Kitaj: Portraits and Reflections at Abbot Hall Art Gallery. McKenzie writes: "Kitaj was one of the most formidable and articulate artists to develop a personal iconography drawing inspiration from a range of sources. The human figure is central to his work, and in this he was against
Rebecca Harp blogs about German/British painter Walter Sickert. Harp posts a fantastic image gallery and notes: "I personally think that his nude paintings are his best works, but I have included here below as many as I could find. Following Degas' advice, Sickert painted in the studio, working from drawings and memory as an escape
Steven Alexander reviews an exhibition of new paintings by Rebecca Purdum at Jack Tilton Gallery, on view through November 5, 2011. Alexander writes: "The surfaces are rich accumulations of interactions and encounters over time, with thicker and thinner, oily and matte areas mingling into a dusky soup that is at once ethereal and utterly physical.
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition of new paintings by Susan Rothenberg on view at Sperone Westwater, New York through October 29 2011. Butler notes: " the driving force in Rothenberg's work continues to be the combination of agitated brushstroke and idiosyncratic composition, which enables the painter to move convincingly from perceptual study of the
Kisa Lala blogs about the new film Gerhard Richter Painting from by Soda Pictures directed by Corinna Belz. "Belz filmed the secretive artist at his studios in Cologne in Germany over several months to create a fully immersive studio experience, though the artist seems to rarely forget he is being filmed. Richter says in the