Mira Schor writes about Leon Golub: Riot at Hauser & Wirth, New York, on view through Jue 20, 2015. Schor observes: "Golub is a painter. He is a political painter, consciously so. He strives for the heroic, via the anti-heroic, but irony is not his calling card and materiality, flayed scumbled paint on unstretched raw
Paige K. Bradley reviews Charles Burchfield: The Nature of Seeing at DC Moore Gallery, New York, on view through June 13, 2015. Bradley writes: "Start anywhere, go everywhere—that would seem to be the calling card of mid-twentieth-century painter Charles Burchfield’s body of work, which predominately captures scenes from nature and rural, country life as charged
Lily Kuonen reviews Jered Sprecher: The Hollow That Echoes at Gallery Protocol, Gainesville, Florida, on view through May 29, 2015. Kuonen writes: "... just as a coherent string of words creates a sentence, or several clicks creates data tracking, an assortment of visual qualities or even strategic marks can be combined to produce an image.
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting visit the studio of painter Heidi Hahn. Hahn comments: "I'm such a figurative artist that ... it's not a painting until there's a person in it... even though there's a lot of abstracted moments within this figuration that come together ... I've always been that kind of person where I'm
Anna Tome reviews the recent exhibition Nancy Haynes: anomalies and non-sequiturs at Regina Rex, New York. Tome writes: "As one walked through gallery, one witnessed an artist—self taught, remarkably—inventing her own forms and paying homage to her forbearers, all the while conscious of her own status as a woman painter coming up in the male
John Goodrich reviews Thomas Berding: Discard Parade at The Painting Center, New York, on view through May 23, 2015. Goodrich writes that "the installation handsomely pairs [Berding's paintings] according to their internal dynamics. The diagonals emerging from the background tapestry of brushstrokes in one canvas mirror the angles in another; the somewhat centripetal rhythms of
Piri Halasz reviews two exhibitions: Friedel Dzubas: Paintings of the 1960s at The Elkon Gallery (through May 29) and Epic Abstraction: Friedel Dzubas in the 1970s at Loretta Howard Gallery (closed). Halasz writes; "For most artists, a 'late style' comes as the final fillip. With Friedel Dzubas, it represents the third stage of an evolution
Nicholas Wroe profiles painter Frank Auerbach. An exhibition of Auerbach's work will be on view at Tate Britain from October 9, 2015 - March 13, 2016. Wroe writes: "... why has [Auerbach] adhered to a regime over much of the last 60 years that is far more restrictive than anything an employer would impose, often
John Yau reviews Tom Burckhardt: AKA Incognito at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York through June 12, 2015. Yau writes: "It is in the painting itself that Burckhardt, who was born in 1964, distinguishes himself from other abstract artists of his generation. Rather than relying on a particular or signature process, vocabulary, message or aesthetic
Frieze Magazine
Josephine New writes about the paintings of Simon Ling. New observers: "At the heart of Ling’s practice are two preoccupations. Firstly, his fascination with making ‘something’ (a painting) out of ‘nothing’ (a uniformly overlooked corner of an urban housing estate, say). Secondly, perhaps more significant, is the understanding that the imagination is partnered with the
Kenneth Baker reviews John Meyer: Diptychs at George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco, on view through June 13, 2015. Baker writes: "The installation at Lawson permits visitors to see that the incidence of light on the paintings’ surfaces matters crucially to their definition, or self-definition. Yet even the surest perception of such aspects, under what seem
John Goodrich reviews Deborah Kahn: Paintings at Bowery Gallery, New York, on view through May 16, 2015. Goodrich writes: "Kahn vigorously characterizes the elements within these scenes, not through illustrative descriptions but through pictorial events. What does this mean? Simply put, if you look at the paintings and absorb their most elemental effect – the
Steven Alexander blogs about the exhibition Suzanne Caporael: The Landscape at Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe, New York, through May 23, 2015. Alexander observes: "Unlike the majority of her paintings in recent years, the new works 'read' immediately as landscapes, rather than as abstract paintings distilled from fleeting observations. That is not to imply that they have lost any
A. Bascove reviews Joan Snyder: Sub Rosa at Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York, on view through June 20, 2015. Bascove writes: "Snyder is in full mastery here. Her use of multiple materials, lush color, and the tension of opposites; the thin washes under built up mounds of paint and paper mache, the stark contrast of
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit the studio of painter Paul Pagk. Pagk comments: "The experience I'm going for is different than what happens when I'm painting them... I'm trying to get to a place I don't know ... then it can capture my attention... I don't want paintings to arrive at final ideas too
Brenda Goodman recalls the experience of making her 1985 painting Breakthrough. Goodman writes: "The middle of the right hand side wasn’t working but it was so beautiful I didn’t want to give it up. I was standing on the edge of the abyss but willfully chose not to jump in. I did not want to
Charley Peters reviews works by Callum Innes recently on view at Frith Street Gallery, London. Peters writes: "In these works geometry, and in some ways painting itself, is a performance; a systematic process of structurally marking out pictorial space in which to frame areas of chaotic chemical intervention; each stain of pigment recording decisive moments
Hunter Braithwaite interviews painter Dale McNeil, whose show Material Will: Force In Form is on view at Tops Gallery, Memphis through May 31, 2015. McNeil comments: "A part of my painting process involves placing a step—a phase or transitional level—between the traditional applications of paint to canvas. I take impressions from paintings in process, propagating
William Tucker remembers painter James Adley (1931-2015). Tucker recalls: "You could not get back far enough in his studio to get a picture without distortion, and even in a large public space the actual visual experience of a 50-foot canvas like Transition (1988-98) was impossible to capture in a slide. Size was a necessary component
Anna McNay reviews Modigliani: A Unique Artistic Voice at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London, on view through June 28, 2015. McNay writes: "As the artist put it: 'What I am searching for is neither the real nor the unreal, but the subconscious, the mystery of what is instinctive in the human race.'