Matthew Smith posts installation photos from Stella Sounds: The Scarlatti K Series on view at The Phillips Collection through September 4, 2011. Smith writes: "Stella's work is meant to provide a contemporary context for the Phillips’ concurrent show, Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence... The idea is that contemporary abstraction like Stella’s has its theoretical
Daniel B. Gallagher reviews the exhibition Figure, Memorie, Spazio: disegni da Fra’Angelico a Leonardo which was on view at Galleria degli Uffizi and Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence (closed June 12, 2011). Gallagher writes: "Precisely because drawing was considered an indispensable daily discipline, it became the privileged means of unlocking the cognitive processes
David Moxon posts a 1988 video of Gillian Ayres in 1988 by Geoffrey Robinson on the occasion of the exhibition Gillian Ayres at Arnolfini Gallery on view through July 11, 2011. The video shows Ayres painting and talking about abstraction and her work. Ayres says abstraction is "very clearly the energy of the [20th] century,
Ed Beem reviews two concurrent painting exhibitions at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine: Maine Moderns: Art in Sequinland, 1900-1940 on view through September 11 and John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury on view through October 10. Maine Moderns: Art in Sequinland highlights the importance of Maine in the development of American Modernism. Beem notes
Ekaterina Popova reviews Paris Through the Window: Marc Chagall and his Circle on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through July 10, 2011. Popova writes: "While the focus of the event is on Marc Chagall himself, it is especially instructive to view his paintings within the context of his colleagues' work, as well. Extraordinarily
[IMAGES] Installation photos from the exhibition Erwin Gross - Malerei on view at Bernd Kugler Gallery, Innsbruck through July 23, 2011. Gross' paintings, which engage "the principle of landscape painting," also engage painting as process relying "...more on reduction than... on addition... A taut surface is produced by stripping and wiping away, by means of
Judith H. Dobrzynski blogs about the retrospective exhibition Dorothea Rockburne: In My Mind's Eye on view at the Parrish Art Museum through August 14, 2011. Dobrzynski writes: "Rockburne has gone her own way. During more than 40 years of working, she's been influenced by 'such wide-ranging sources as mathematics, Renaissance art, astronomy, archeology, and philosophy,'
[VIDEO] Jannon Stein writes about the abstract films of painter Hans Richter who "[turned] his talents to film and produces one of the earliest abstract films, Rhythmus 21." Stein's post includes three of Richter's films and also quotes Richter's descriptions of his aims in film-making which could easily describe similar aims in painting: "The film
Bob Duggan blogs about the exhibition The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World on view at Tate Britain through September 4, 2011. Duggan writes: "Perhaps no other art movement had such a cut and dried beginning and end, yet no other art movement has been so poorly defined, even today. Great, yet slightly mad, minds
Martin Bromirski posts installation images from Mary Weatherford's exhibition Cave at Pismo at Brennan & Griffin. Weatherford's large scale abstractions, based on on-site drawings,, "[focus] on the cave as symbol and metaphor. Using a simple palette and loose overlapping geometric shapes, Weatherford's canvases are reduced images - depicting only the interior of the cave."
Larry Groff interviews painter Lucy Barber about her work. In response to a question about the importance of the "process of painting from observation" Barber responds: "It's very important, and for me having an anchor in realism is key. Though as we know, the painting process itself is abstract. 'Painting from observation' is an odd
Interview with painter Peter Blundell. Of his process Blundell notes: "The intention is to resolve the painting into a concrete pictorial form. It is very open to begin with and goes through many changes but after a time the painting determines itself."
Painter Paul Behnke tours painting shows currently on view in Chelsea, NYC including Shared Space w/ Susan Ross & Monique Ford and Emily Berger: New Works at The Painting Center (through June 18, 2011), We Regret To Inform You There Is No Space Or Place For Abstract Painting at Martos Gallery (through June 18, 2011),
Julian Phillips blogs about the exhibition Autofiction, paintings by Thibaud Thiercelin on view at Dalet Gallery, Philadelphia through June 25, 2011. Phillips writes: "Thiercelin’s oil paintings have an almost dreamlike quality, allowing the layers of color to speak for themselves while in cahoots with each other." He adds that the paintings "[allow] the viewer plenty
David Moxon posts about Zig Zag: deliberations in construction, sequence and colour, on view at Charlie Dutton Gallery, London through July 2, 2011, an "innovative and diverse exhibition of new developments in abstraction... These artists have developed an understanding for the possibility of an 'internal logic' in their work," as well as "ideas of 'colour
Profile of work by Toronto painter John Brown whose work is on view at Wilde Gallery in Berlin through June 18, 2011. The press release notes: "[Brown's] process is immensely labour-intensive: a single work can take years to complete. The solitary act of applying paint, building imagery and then aggressively reducing the piece back down
Beard & Brush
Matthew Farina interviews painter Alex Cohen about his work. Cohen discusses working in a rural setting, nostalgia in painting, framing (Cohen makes his own), and his interest in first person narrative paintings: "The first person point of view gives the sense of the painting as an experience rather than captured scene."
Mark Dagley visits 92 year old Washington Color School painter Paul Reed. Dagley writes: "Reed is the last surviving participant of the Washington Color Painters exhibition, a pivotal event in the annals of the Washington, D.C. art scene... Of all the Washington Color Painters, Reed employed the most non-programmatic approach to painting. His work is
Hrag Vartanian interviews Jason Andrew, curator of Jack Tworkov: The Accident of Choice on view June 17 - September 17, 2011 at Black Mountain College Museum and Art Center, Asheville, NC. The exhibition investigates Tworkov's involvement with Black Mountain College. Describing the derivation of the show title, Andrew quotes Tworkov "For a long time I
James Kalm films the exhibition Leon Kossoff at Mitchell-Innes & Nash on view through June 18, 2011. Kalm's walkthrough includes surface close-ups of many of the paintings. Kalm notes: "Each piece is a testament to long hours and consistent overworking that have gained Kossoff his immense reputation."