After having "a mixed relationship with Brice Marden's paintings over the years", painter Altoon Sultan comes away from the current exhibition Brice Marden: Letters at Matthew Marks with a new opinion: "These paintings looked beautiful, sensitive, sensuous, lyrical. Trying to tease out my change of heart I see something different in the work, and probably
At Gagosian Gallery, Rome Artist Takashi Murakami exhibits "two epic paintings... Dragon in Clouds- Red Mutation (2010) and Dragon in Clouds- Indigo Blue (2010) each comprise of nine panels, measure eighteen meters in length and depart from the artist’s usual technicolor palette to revert to more traditional Japanese influences."
Painter Albert Irvin "talked to TateShots about three of his paintings; Flodden, St Germain and Empress, pieces that he hadn’t seen since they were last on show at the Tate. Albert explain[s] ... how and why he made the trio, as well as offering up his thoughts on his career as an artist."
James Kalm visits two exhibitions: Five from LA at Galerie Lelong and Kassay, Overton, Morris at Mitchell-Innes and Nash. Five from LA "features paintings by... Whitney Bedford, Kirsten Everberg, Alexandra Grant, Iva Gueorguieva and Annie Lapin... all California based painters who meld representation with abstraction or the mediation of pigment... Mitchell-Innes & Nash presents works
A new stained-glass window co-designed by artist Kiki Smith and architect Deborah Gans graces the refurbished Eldridge Street Synagogue. Smith's design features symbols of both the United States and the Jewish faith "establishing the identity of the United States, and marrying symbolically the Jewish faith and the immigrant population of the Lower East Side that
"A recent conversation between Rebecca Harp and E. M. Saniga, an intriguing and enigmatic artist based in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County... [Saniga] paints rural and urban landscapes, still lifes and figures with a palette, construction and diffused light of his own unique realism"
Ed Schad writes about two exhibitions: Kaz Oshiro, Home Anthology 2 at Las Cienegas Projects and Steve Wolfe on Paper at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Both artists work in trompe l'oeil. Schad writes "There is something about trompe-l'œil ... that strikes to the core of art, its illusions both interesting and slightly disappointing.
Martin Bromirski posts some great installation photos of the recently opened Katharina Grosse exhibition "One Floor Up More Highly" at MASS MOCA. He also posts links to his recent three part post about an artist talk Grosse gave in 2005.
Artcritical's Jonanthan Goodman reviews Hans Hartung at Cheim & Read. Goodman writes: "The canvases at Cheim & Read emphasize Hartung’s trademark lyric gesture:with the help of spray paint, he created works whose lyricism is extreme, bordering on the decorative... Yet is it unwise to write off Hartung’s achievement ... in light of a life’s accomplishments,
Richard Hull interviews artists and long time partners Jim Nutt and Gladys Nilsson about their work, influences, and collecting art. Hull writes: "With fierce independence and a nonchalant attitude toward reigning trends in contemporary art, they create paintings and drawings that root from an intense need to make things, and to make them right."
Abstract Painting England reports on the exhibition Mondrian/de Stijl at Centre Pompidou in Paris. "The exhibition explores his commitment to painting from the early years of the twentieth century, through his ground breaking developments with De Stijl combining his ideas on Theosophy with other artists, Theo Van Doesburg and Gerrit Rietveld. They created such a
Regina Hackett writes about Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musee Picasso in Paris on view at the Seattle Art Museum through January 17, 2011. She writes: "The best thing about the Picasso exhibit ... stems from its history. More than 90 percent of the 100-plus paintings, sculptures and drawings were not sold but saved by the
Painter Philip Koch writes about Lawren Harris "a Canadian landscape painter active in the earlier years of the 20th century... a northern equivalent of the American regionalist painters Charles Burchfield and Grant Wood." Koch admires, among other things, the way Harris "can combine the most muscular massive shapes ... with the most delicate and lace
Justin Lieberman visits painter Rochelle Feinstein's studio to discuss her recent painting project The Estate of Rochelle F. Lieberman describes Feinstein's work: "hard to decipher. It is full of jokes, yet oddly lacking in punch lines. Unlike that of many of her postmodernist contemporaries, its elusive meaning has consistently deferred any sort of commodification. Alongside
Original photos and commentary on relief sculptures on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by painter Altoon Sultan who writes: "... my favorite form of sculpture is the relief, both high and low, which may be because it is closer to painting in being tethered to a plane; sensitivity of line is emphasized and
With a painter's eye, Sharon Butler takes a look at conceptual artist Christopher K. Ho's exhibition Regional Painting (2010), "a thought-provoking interrogation of regional art practice, at Winkleman Gallery." The paintings in the show, exhibited as the work of fictional "regional" painter Hirsch E. P. Rothko, attempt to examine what it means to be an
A look at Alexis Rockman, Thunderdome at Salomon Contemporary. "The exhibition can also be seen as the gallery becoming Rockman’s Thunderdome, a space where the artist foretells of the dangers of human environmental cruelty, depicting the wreckage using scientific forecasting and hyperrealist painting technique." Alexis Rockman, A Fable for Tomorrow is also running at the
Judith Dobrzynski reports on the Dulwich Picture Gallery's unique exhibition schedule for 2011: "one masterpiece every month of the year. It's like an unfolding calendar, it's like a year long advent calendar of your dreams." The schedule includes works by: Sir Thomas Lawrence, Velazquez, Vermeer, El Greco, Veronese, Rembrandt, Ingres, van Gogh, Gainsborough, Constable, David
New York Times interactive feature on the Metropolitan Museum's restoration of Velázquez's, Portrait of Philip IV. "[C]urators and conservators ... now believe that a full-length portrait of Philip IV that has been in the Met's collection since 1914 is by Velázquez and not his workshop." The feature includes interactive images and a podcast.
ArtKritique's John Matthews writes about the Pompidou Center's Nancy Spero exhibition. Matthews writes: "It's an enormous credit to an artist so easily identified with the pop-art, feminism, ant-war protest and all sorts of counter cultural reference that the visual and physical presence of Spero's work can stand outside and above the biography, theory and reportage