Caleb de Jong reviews the exhibition Raoul de Keyser: Freedom at David Zwirner Gallery on view through October 29, 2011. De Jong writes: "Modesty and irreverence somehow coexist in de Keyser's pocket size canvases, silence and dialogue form contrapuntal harmonic arrangements within six square inches of oil paint... Despite the parsimonious means, de Keyser’s paintings
Hrag Vartanian posts a great video find: Alcopley, Conrad Marca-Relli, Joe Stefanelli, John Stephan, Robert Richenburg, and Will Barnet "discuss the creation of the first Artist's Annual, the 9th St. Show and the continuation of the Annuals at the Stable Gallery."
Carmen Winant reviews Sara Bright: New Paintings at George Lawson Gallery, Los Angeles on view through October 15, 2011. Winant writes: "The paintings are quiet and robust, alternating between figuration and abstraction... If gesture is one protagonist in Brights' work, color is its equally important counterpart."
Joey Veltkamp reviews the exhibition Islands - paintings by Susanna Bluhm and Cable Griffith at SOIL, Seattle on view through October 1, 2011. Veltkamp writes that Bluhm and Griffith's paintings are "mystical terra firma. Strange, new islands, populated with references to Guston, early video games, and feminism, are all tied together with a unified of
[VIDEO] James Kalm visits the exhibition Alex Katz at Gavin Brown's Enterprise on view through October 8, 2011. Kalms notes "a relationship between [Katz's] broad sweeping strokes and some of the painting techniques of the abstract expressionists..."
Matthew Farina reviews the exhibition Loren Munk: Location, Location, Location at Lesley Heller Workspace on view through October 16, 2011. Farina writes that Munk's subject matter of "historical fragments and a visual patchwork of record keeping... feels especially homemade and definitively personal despite the artist’s outward preoccupation... With our abilities to chart and graph almost
David Carrier reviews the exhibition Per Kirkeby New Paintings at Michael Werner Gallery, New York. "Like Willem de Kooning, Kirkeby is a virtuoso at creating unity from... visual chaos... We Americans tend to think that Abstract Expressionism is a style of the past, dependent upon a worldview that no longer commands assent. And we have
Kisa Lala blogs about the new book Richard Dadd: The Artist and the Asylum by Nicholas Tromans. Lala writes that after murdering his father, Dadd was "was put away in an asylum where he began work on a series of influential masterpieces... In Troman's book, the author tries to separate Dadd, who was already a
Joshua Abelow photoblogs installation images of the exhibition Ida Ekblad at Green Naftali Gallery, New York on view through October 15, 2011. Emily Nathan, writing for artnet this week notes: "Along with other younger artists, Ekblad is putting her own stamp on a kind of evocative abstraction that had seemed exhausted by earlier masters, from
Larry Groff interviews painter Stephen Magsig, whose urban landscape paintings "have a more naturalistic color, space and light than what you often see with photorealism." Interestingly Magsig, who paints New York City storefronts and urban views of Detroit, details how he uses digitized photos, viewed on a computer, as part of his studio practice. Magsig
After watching Lech Majewski's new film, The Mill and the Cross, Sharon Butler considers the fate of storytelling in painting. Butler writes: " ...we often rush past the history paintings, but in the sixteenth century, these paintings were like epic feature films. Looking at older paintings, especially those painted by Dutch and Flemish masters who
In a fascinating interview entitled Translating the Planet Into Something Visible painters Mario Naves and Josh Dorman discuss Dorman's new work and studio process. Dorman notes: "When I'm working, I don’t think about my location in art history or in today's art world. I'm inside the act of painting, cutting, pasting and drawing. The art
Caleb de Jong reviews the exhibition Graham Nickson: Paintings: 1972–2011 Paths of the Sun on view at Knoedler & Company through October 29, 2011. De Jong writes: "Painted in chunky brick like shapes with incandescent color, Nickson's work sits unashamed in the history of natural representation... Partly as a rebellion against the current ideology disfavoring
Photoblog of the exhibition Tomma Abts at Kunsthalle Dusseldorf on view through October 9 ,2011. "Although [Abts] follows a predetermined method in her painting, applying purely geometrical shapes to a classic 48 x 38 cm portrait format in layer after layer of oil and acrylic paint, her painting is far removed from serial production. The
Preivew of the exhibtion Hans Burkhardt: Within & Beyond The Mainstream on view at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts from September 24 - December 24, 2011. "Arriving in L.A. in 1937, following his association with Arshile Gorky, whose studio he shared in New York from 1928-37, Burkhardt represented L.A.'s earliest and most critical link to the
Photoblog of images from the 1961 Mark Rothko exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery accompanying Coline Milliard's post Rothko's Little-Known British Connection Comes Into Focus at the Whitechapel Gallery. Rothko in Britain is currently on view at the Whitechapel Gallery through February 26, 2012.
Painter's Bread
Michael Rutherford interviews painter Jered Sprecher. About his painting process Sprecher notes: "The paintings are not planned out; in effect I am constantly introducing contingencies to each work. Limits and unexpected occurrences are barriers to be embraced, challenged, and creatively addressed. If I look at the logic that resides in a particular painting or work
Interview with painter Paul Pagk about his work and studio practice. Pagk says: "I spend my time painting even in those moments I am not physically painting... [in the studio] ... I will be thinking about the last paintings I have just worked on or brought to a level from where I am able to
Elizabeth Sheppell blogs about the paintings of Atlanta-based artist Don Cooper. Sally Hansell writing for Burnaway has noted that "[Cooper's] focused process produces images that are stunning in their visual complexity yet generous in their simplicity."
Tryharder photoblogs the exhibition Kimberly Brooks: Thread at Taylor De Cordoba, Los Angeles. In her new work, Brooks "continues to explore portraiture, specifically the complexities of representations of female identities. While in her previous series... the artist used figures to construct narratives, here the female form is part of a broader abstracted landscape... Brooks continues