Roberta Smith considers the paintings of Piet Mondrian. Smith begins: "The longer I look at Mondrian’s paintings, the more I see in them. This applies to lots of art, but I think Mondrian built real time into his paintings. They unfold with unusual deliberation in a semblance of symmetry and order that is actually precarious,
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Charles Garabedian. Recalling working on one painting Garabedian comments: "One evening I started painting a standing figure. I got involved and it was just killing me. I was having so much trouble with it. I was working and working and finally after many hours, I said, 'Forget it.' I left and
Shana Dumont Garr interviews painter Ashlynn Browning. Browing comments: "There is never a plan or study for a piece in the beginning. That is just not a system that works for me. I’ve tried it, but I quickly realized that intuition, instinct, accident—whatever you want to call it—is the main driver of my work and
David Rhodes reviews works by Stanley Whitney at Karma Gallery, New York (closed) and Stanley Whitney: Dance the Orange at The Studio Museum Harlem (through October 25, 2015). Rhodes writes: "In their rows of rounded shapes and loosely brushed compartments Whitney’s earlier paintings resemble shelves or cavities, reading like sections of a catacomb or stacked
Robin Greenwood reviews several shows of work by William Gear: William Gear: the Painter that Time Forgot at the Towner Gallery Eastbourne (through September 27) and at City Art Centre, Edinburgh, 24 (through February 14), A Radical View: William Gear as Curator 1958 -1964 at the Towner (through August 31), and William Gear: A Centenary
Peter Walsh reviews Van Gogh and Nature at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, on view through September 13, 2015. Walsh writes that "the elimination of the haunted self portraits, including the icon images of the artist with a bandaged ear, shifts attention away from van Gogh the half-savage tortured soul and towards van Gogh
Adrian Margaret Brune blogs about Elizabeth Livingston: Night Fell at Lodge Gallery, New York, on view through September 6, 2015. Brune quotes Jason Patrick Voegele of the Lodge Gallery: "Liz takes great pleasure in peeling back veneers of suburban order to capture intimate moments ... Her most recent body of work evokes all the same
Maev Kennedy previews Soaring Flight: Peter Lanyon’s Gliding Paintings which will be on view at the Courtauld Gallery, London from October 15, 2015 – 17 January 17, 2016. Kennedy notes that the show will feature "15 major paintings ... that show the artist’s attempts to capture the bright blue sky and light and the harsh
Steven Alexander blogs about paintings by Svenja Deininger. Alexander writes: "One of the most striking aspects of Deininger's work is her sensitivity to the nuances of her materials -- her ability to achieve a wonderful variety of surface and edge within a highly reduced vocabulary. She does this with utmost subtlety, employing soft color contrasts,
David Carbone makes a connection between a recent experience viewing paintings by Andrew Forge (at Betty Cuningham Gallery) and past experiences listening to compositions by Morton Feldman. Carbone concludes: "Both Feldman’s and Forge’s works achieve lucid-dream states. In my experience, it was the especially large scale, whether spatial or durational, that produced profoundly transporting totalities.
Ben Eastham interviews painter Luc Tuymans. Eastham writes: "Tuymans describes an approach defined by the artist’s decision to take inspiration from the world around him and his place in it. This is ‘a realism born of necessity. This country has been overrun by so many foreign powers that we don’t have time to be Romantic.’
Caren Canier remembers her time studying with Philip Guston as a graduate student at Boston University. "In response to the “Guston Effect”, I have decided to chronicle my memories of Guston as a teacher to reflect on the way in which he influenced a painter whose work does not resemble his own, and in doing
Philippe Dagen reviews Van Gogh + Munch at the Munch Museet, Oslo, (through September 6) and at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (through January 17, 2016). Dagen writes: "Sometimes the connection seems so obvious it must be deliberate: Munch’s Starry Night of 1922-24 is a tribute to [Van Gogh's] Starry Night over the Rhone of
Burlington Magazine
Sarah Whitfield reviews the recent exhibition Pierre Bonnard: Painting Arcadia at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. The show, Whitfield notes, addresses two issues: "Should Bonnard be seen primarily as an easel painter, as fully engaged in the twentieth century as Matisse or Picasso? In which case these decorations, dislodged from their original period settings, tend to
Andy Parkinson blogs about several works at Summer Mix at Turps Banana Gallery, on view through August 15, 2015. The show features works by Jessie Browne, Rose Davey, Carlos David, Dan Davis, Matthew Draper, Stuart Elliot, Louise Evans, James Fisher, Kirsten Glass, Kate Groobey, Lewis Henderson, Sam Herbert, Günther Herbst, Reece Jones, Richard Kirwan, Hannah
Painter Barbara Campbell Thomas reflects on ten works of art that from her recent trip to Italy. Introducing the images (of works by Sasetta, Morandi, Inji Efflatoun, Marlene Dumas and others) Thomas writes: "I came to Italy to draw and think, but also to locate an abstract painter’s alternate art history, one perfectly contoured to
Tamar Zinn blogs about works by Stanley Whitney at Karma Gallery, New York. Zinn observes that: "By examining Whitney's studies, you see him explore how the rows communicate, how forms variously open up across a row or elbow tightly together. You see him grappling with space, color, and with the tension between line and color.
Martha Edelheit remembers a visit with painter Georgia O'Keeffe. Edelheit recalls: "In the living room, the first thing I saw was a large cloud painting, like I’d first seen at a recent Whitney Biennial. How marvelous that someone had finally painted sky and clouds from an airplane’s view. At the Whitney, I was startled to
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Hank Pitcher. Pitcher remarks: "At some point I realized, I am living in Santa Barbara, so why not work outside? Also, there is that Eugène Boudin quote:, 'Two strokes in the field are worth two weeks in the studio.' In the field I often see something I could never make up
Charles Kessler reviews The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington D.C., on view through August 30, 2015. Kessler notes that the show is "a major exhibition, indeed — 66 paintings and drawings covering [Kuniyoshi's] entire career; and it's the first comprehensive exhibition of his work in the United