Larry Groff blogs about the paintings of Lisa Breslow on view at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York through December 20, 2014. Groff notes: "The emotional register of this body of work is dialed to a more serious channel for visual contemplation. Despite the loose touch everything here seems carefully considered and finds its place.
Colm Tóibín reviews Goya: Order and Disorder at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, on view through January 19, 2015. Tóibín writes: "There are two ways, perhaps, of looking at Goya, who was born near Zaragoza in 1746 and died in exile in France in 1828. In the first version, he was almost innocent, a
Chris Lowrance interviews painter Kathy Liao about her work. Liao remarks: "I think of the formal issues of painting, of lines and colors and composition. I think of painting as a medium, as materials, as objects – the texture, the touch and the body of paint, the way it runs, drips, build up, get scraped
Altoon Sultan blogs about the exhibition Ragamala: Picturing Sound at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view through December 14, 2014. Sultan writes that in Indian painting the "forms and colors are so engaging, and their intimate size invites close looking. Their worlds are magical, with attention paid to flowing, brightly colored garments
Jed Perl re-considers Picasso on the occasion of the newly renovated Musée Picasso in Paris and two New York shows: Picasso and Jacqueline: The Evolution of Style at Pace Gallery (through January 10) and Picasso and the Camera at Gagosian Gallery (through January 3). Perl writes:"Picasso as he emerges at the Pace and Gagosian galleries
Mario Naves reviews Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view through February 16, 2014. Naves writes: "The exhibition is divided into didactic sections that are light in touch: the close relationship between Picasso and Braque is informatively glanced upon, as is the use of color by
T.J. Clark reviews Rembrandt: The Late Works at the National Gallery, London, on view through January 18, 2014. Clark observes: "What I now think was wrong in my previous approach to Rembrandt was my choice of terms. [I] assumed that the ‘look’ of self-portraiture was paramount, and extracted the look from the ‘face’. Rembrandt did
Blog post on paintings by Victoria Morton at The Modern Institute, Glasgow on view through November 30. 2014. The show presents "a cycle of five large-scale oil paintings which specifically respond to the space in terms of their size and installation, offering a site for reflection. Each painting forms a narrative with the next. ...
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit the studio of painter Marina Adams. Adams comments: "I don't like to dictate too much, I like to 'allow.' ... [in abstract art] you create a space for thought as opposed to dictating a thought... The work feeds itself; the work leads me along. So in that respect it's
John Yau reviews Jasper Johns: Sculptures and Related Paintings at Craig F. Starr Gallery, New York, on view through January 23, 2015. Yau writes: "One problem ... as Barnaby Wright points out ... is that Johns has never shown any affinity with 'the populist imagery of Andy Warhol or the ‘objective’ flatness of Frank Stella.'
Mark Segal profiles painter Vincent Longo. Segal writes: "The square and the circle are fundamental elements of his work. 'I start with a certain kind of structure, the center relating to the edge at the same time.' The Buddhist mandala and Hindu yantra have been recurring motifs in his paintings, less for their symbolism than
Ashley Garrett interviews artist Ann Craven, whose work is currently on view at Hannah Hofman Gallery, Los Angeles through December 20, 2014. Asked about working in series, Craven comments: "... in a way for me it’s like how a poet revisits a poem, and then wants to change a certain word or a comma or
Ann Saul reviews works by Dana Gordon and Cathy Diamond at Andre Zarre Gallery, New York, on view through December 6, 2014. Saul writes that "Gordon’s canvases coax line and color to share importance in a display of exuberant abstraction. Executed with great precision, vivid colors and playful shapes are carefully arranged in Gordon’s thoughtful
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting visit the studio of painter Paul Behnke. Asked about the pleasure inherent in the experience of pure color, Behnke comments: "I think of my color as more anxiety... color can serve as a segue into the work... the color makes them more accessible... an then ... when things settle down
David Cohen considers the photographic works of painter Stuart Shils in an essay for the exhibition Stuart Shils: because i have no interest in those questions... at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York, on view through December 21, 2014. Cohen writes: "Stuart Shils is a painter. His very being has come to be filtered
Viktor Witkowski blogs about Jenny Holzer: Dust Paintings, recently on view at Cheim & Read, New York. Witkowski writes: "Whenever politics enter painting, one of the questions that arises is how subject matter relates to form. Are there successful painting strategies in which something otherwise unseen can be made visible? Can paintings trigger political awareness?
Thomas Devaney considers two recently published books: How I Became a Painter: Trevor Winkfield in Conversation With Miles Champion (Pressed Wafer) and George Braque and Others: The Selected Art Writings of Trevor Winkfield (The Song Cave). Devaney notes that "it is Winkfield’s recent books ... which most attest to such a steadfast life of looking,
O.C. Yerebakan reviews Julian Stanczak: From Life at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, on view through December 6, 2014. Yerebakan writes that: "Hallucinatory and subliminal arrangements of forms and colors create absorbing works of art, in which the artist delivers his viewers the freedom to build their own interpretations and narratives rather than imposing thematic
Larry Groff interviews painter Ann Lofquist whose work was recently on view at Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica. Lofquist comments: "I think many of us have had the experience of a stab of joy and longing when looking at nature; I certainly have and I’m trying to recapture those moments in my paintings... the ever-changing
Nicole Rudick interviews artist Gladys Nilsson about her work, on view at Garth Greenan Gallery, New York, through December 6, 2014. Nilsson comments: "Sometimes my people [in the works] know exactly what’s going on, and other times they’re just going along and suddenly they realize that there are little corner pockets that have some awfully