John Haber reviews The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, on view through April 5, 2015. The show features works by works by Richard Aldrich, Joe Bradley, Kerstin Brätsch, Matt Connors, Michaela Eichwald, Nicole Eisenman, Mark Grotjahn, Charline von Heyl, Rashid Johnson, Julie Mehretu,
Tamar Zinn blogs about two exhibitions: Kellyann Burns at McKenzie Fine Art (through February 8) and Siri Berg: Color and Space at Hionas Gallery (through February 7). Zinn writes that both shows "offer a glimpse of different approaches within the realm of geometric abstraction and make evident the limits of trying to define this tradition
T.J. Clark reviews William Blake: Apprentice and Master at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, on view through March 1, 2015. Clark writes: "I am not at all sure that we have an answer to it as regards Blake as an artist: a critical answer, that is, a set of descriptions and evaluations, arguing not just about
Xico Greenwald reviews Madame Cézanne at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view through March 15, 2015. Greenwald writes: "Though this exhibit is, indeed, marvelous, [curator Dita] Amory’s revisionist history is a distraction. Claiming 'a tender interchange' can be detected in Madame Cézanne’s gaze, museumgoers searching for signs of affection in these portraits
James Kalm visits an exhibition of new paintings by Philip Taaffe at Luhring Augustine Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York, on view through April 26. 2015. Kalm notes: "This selection of five large scale paintings presents the artist's signature techniques a melding of print, staining, silkscreen and other applications of pigment that produce a unique and decorative
Addison Parks writes about the work of Margrit Lewczuk. Lewczuk's show Me,We, curated by Suzy Spence is on view at The Gallery @1GAP, Brooklyn through April 23, 2015. Parks writes: "Lewczuk paints monuments. To some being. To some Beingness. Like some extraterrestrial landing strip, like crop circles from space, with deafening sound, she reaches out.
ARTnews
Ad Reinhardt's Twelve Rules for a New Academy is the latest post in the ARTNews "Retrospectives" column. Alex Greenberger introduces the text writing: "Much of today’s discussion of contemporary abstraction is centered on 'Zombie Formalism'—Walter Robinson’s coinage for new work that revisits (or apes, one might say) historical forms of abstraction for purely stylistic reasons.
An essay Carl Belz written for the exhibition Roger Tibbetts: Making and Meaning at the Edward Mitchell Bannister Gallery, Rhode Island College, Providence, on view through February 20, 2015. Belz writes: "Becoming and being. Thus paired, the paintings rightly assume dynamic vitality for us, but the pairing at the same time risks allowing the impression
John Yau reflects on a visit to the studio of painter Louise Belcourt. Yau writes: "There is the faintest hint of anguished tension running through Belcourt’s paintings, which belies the solid planes of color filling her surfaces. At one point, I began focusing on the fissures and gaps spreading through her tightly constructed compositions. Later,
Jackie Wullschlager reviews Rubens and his Legacy: Van Dyck to Cézanne, Royal Academy, London, on view through April 10, 2015. Wullschlager writes: "... politically incorrect, though wonderful, is the show’s second Rubens masterpiece: the rare 'Tiger, Lion and Leopard Hunt' from Rennes, which as a story of tumult and conflict between civilisation and nature nicely
Chris Miller reviews recent paintings by Erik Weisenburger at Perimeter Gallery, Chicago, on view through February 25, 2015. Miller writes: "These sixteen visions of life in the north woods take us into that cheerfully lonely natural world once celebrated in Thoreau’s 'Walden.' But there’s more whimsy than morality here, with no sense of the heroic
Eileen Jeng reviews the recent exhibition The Still Open Case of Irving Petlin: From the Years 1960 to 2012 at Kent Fine Art, New York. Jeng writes: "The dark-walled, dimly-lit front gallery at Kent Fine Art housed a re-creation of Petlin’s studio in Paris in 1960 – a desk and table with buckets of coated
Deborah Barlow reflects on the work of artist Jake Berthot (1939-2014). Barlow writes that she finds Berthot's paitings "thoughtful and yet not cerebral. Berthot blends intelligent painting and powerful feeling. Standing in front of one of his works I am invariably struck by the herculean intention to bring something deeply authentic into form. Like his
Roberta Smith reviews paintings by Gianna Commito at Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, on view through February 22, 2015. Smith writes: "The effect is of looking into a broken kaleidoscope, its elements askew in a shallow space. Sense cannot be made of this carefully worked out confusion and the shadowy hall-of-mirrors puzzles it creates, but
William Corwin reviews Kianja Strobert: Of This Day In Time at The Studio Museum in Harlem, on view through March 8, 2015. Corwin writes: "In the tradition of Klein and Dubuffet, Strobert chooses to site her artistic practice within the confines of painting, while literally doing everything she can to reconfigure that discipline through a
Charley Peters interviews artist Judith Duquemin about her work. Duquemin comments: "Whether it be analogue or conceptual reality, or abstract conceptual reality, sometimes referred to as virtual reality, we require a personal history of perceptual experience to respond to what we sense and perceive, and this can be applied to all notions of reality, with
Barbara Friedman considers Lisa Yuskavage's panting Faucet (1995). Friedman remarks: "Many contemporary women artists have reclaimed the depiction of the female nude as Yuskavage does. And many of today’s painters combine high and low sources: in her case, soft porn filtered through Baroque and Color Field painting. But few other artists allow the image that
Andy Parkinson reviews the exhibition Chance and Order, recently on view at Eagle Gallery, London. The show featured works by Andrew Bick, Katrina Blannin, Natalie Dower, Kenneth Martin, Mary Martin, and Jeffrey Steele. Parkinson writes: "The show brings works from the 1960s and 1970s by the British Constructionist and Systems Group together with more recent
Shirine Saad posts Pierre Soulages: Outrenoir, a short film by Barbara Anastacio that features the painter discussing his work in his Paris Studio. In the video interview, conducted by Saad, Soulages comments: "...it's the light that's the real tool! Because it's always whatever is happening in the canvas that directs me. The reality of a
Harry Thorne reviews Serge Poliakoff: Silent Paintings at Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, on view through February 21, 2015. Thorne writes that the "works [exhibited] pose a strong defence to any claims that Poliakoff’s abstraction – and all abstraction for that matter – is nothing but the visual reification of the random. Each canvas is perfectly