Abstract Painting

Peter Shear @ the Fortnight Institute
Hyperallergic

John Yau reviews Peter Shear: Magnolias All at Once at the Fortnight Institute, New York, on view through July 16, 2017. Yau writes: “Shear is interested in composition, color relationships, how forms sit within the rectangle of the canvas, what can be done with the edges, and the texture of paint… There is something wonderfully […]

Samuel Beckett and Painting
artcritical

Michael Coffey reviews Beckett’s Thing–Painting and Theatre by David Lloyd (Edinburgh University Press) Coffey writes: “David Lloyd, in his long-awaited book on Samuel Beckett and the visual arts, arrives, in his closing chapter, at this electrifying thought: ‘The political effect of Beckett’s work in general takes place not at the level of statement, but in […]

Mark Tobey: Threading Light
The New Criterion

Mario Naves reviews Mark Tobey: Threading Light at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, on view through September 10, 2017. Naves writes: “‘Threading Light’ is a superb exhibition. Sensitively paced and keenly selected, the exhibition underscores painterly and metaphorical continuities, all the while tracing a development that, though not without hiccups, is streamlined and, until the […]

Mike Solomon @ Berry Campbell Gallery
Hamptons Art Hub

Peter Malone reviews Mike Solomon: Immediate Splendor at Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, on view through July 8, 2017. Malone begins: “Mike Solomon’s pictorial space appears familiarly limited in the traditional modernist sense, but is dominated by a persistent blur. Viewers are left with the odd feeling of being kept just outside of an event […]

Philip Guston: A Painter and His Muses
The Art Section

Deanna Sirlin reviews Philip Guston and The Poets at the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, on view through September 3, 2017. Sirlin concludes: “[Eugenio] Montale writes of his own poetry, ‘The subject matter of my poetry . . . is the human condition considered in itself.’ Whether one is looking at the earliest period of Guston’s pictorial works, […]

Lois Dickson: A Playpen Within A Battlefield
artcritical

An essay by David Cohen on the paintings of Lois Dickson. Dickson’s exhibition New Worlds is on view at the New York Studio School through July 15, 2017. Cohen writes: “A ludic morphology lies at the heart of Dickson’s endeavor. Elaborations of shape and excavations of depth animate her pictorial intelligence in ways that are […]

Merrill Wagner: Works from the 70’s
Hyperallergic

Thomas Micchelli reviews Merrill Wagner: Works from the 70’s at Zürcher Gallery, New York, on view through June 24, 2017. Micchelli writes: “Merrill Wagner’s remarkable tape paintings are as much head games as they are inquiries into precision and chance. Trying to puzzle them out is akin to reverse-engineering a ship in a bottle: even […]

Lee Lozano: c 1962 @ Hauser & Wirth, London
Studio International

Joe Lloyd reviews Lee Lozano: c 1962 at Hauser & Wirth, London, on view through July 29, 2017. Lloyd writes: “Each piece is untitled and diminutive in size. In shape, they range from squares to frieze-like panels… By forcing one to scrutinise closely, the form draws one into Lozano’s domain while distancing it from the […]

Abstracts @ Poem 88
ArtsATL

Rebecca Brantley reviews ABSTRACTS at Poem 88, Atlanta, on view through June 10, 2017. The show features works by Brendan Carroll, Ben Steele and Zuzka Vaclavik. “Each artist,” Brantley writes, “engages 20th-century traditions, albeit in markedly different ways.”

John Zurier @ Anglim Gilbert
Squarecylinder

David M. Roth reviews John Zurier: Dust and Troubled Air at Anglim Gilbert, San Francisco, on view through June 10, 2017. Roth writes: “This sensation of looking at dense fields and then being drawn into irregularly shaped pools of light is unexpected, shocking even, because nothing in the quick-read indicates that possibility. I was also […]

David Novros @ Paula Cooper
artcritical

David Rhodes reviews works by David Novros at Paula Cooper Gallery (through June 30). Rhodes writes: “Untitled (1975), and Untitled (Frog Altar) (1975) use right angles as pivotal compositional elements… Both the viewer and the painting are animated, provoking an experience like that of passing through a chapel or a cave, rather than analytically viewing […]

Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Mangold & David Novros
Hamptons Art Hub

Charles A. Riley II reviews three New York exhibitions: Ellsworth Kelly: Last Paintings and Plant Drawings at Matthew Marks Gallery (through June 24), Robert Mangold Paintings and Works on Paper 2013 – 2017 at Pace Gallery (through June 17), and works by David Novros at Paula Cooper Gallery (through June 30). Riley notes: “Touring this notably […]

Stanley Whitney: Interview
New American Paintings Blog

Arthur Peña interviews painter Stanley Whitney on the occasion of the exhibition FOCUS: Stanley Whitney recently on view at The Modern, Fort Worth, TX. Whitney comments: “It happens in the color. People bring their own stories to it and the work allows for them to happen all at once. The titles do that to. Peaches could be […]

Mark Dutcher: Studio Visit
Art and Cake

Gary Brewer visits the studio of Mark Dutcher whose show Another World is on view at Jason Vass Gallery, Los Angeles through June 3, 2017. Brewer writes that “[Dutcher’s] approach can express innocence and joy in passages where the canvas remains fresh and present and the paint is applied lightly. In other works where an […]

Mercedes Matter @ Mark Borghi
Hyperallergic

Jennifer Samet reviews Mercedes Matter: A Survey: Paintings & Drawings from 1929 to 1998 at Mark Borghi Fine Art, New York, on view through May 26, 2017. Samet writes: “Matter’s insistence on the nude female body, and on still lifes of flowers, drapery, and skulls as the focus of observational painting — for herself and […]

Patrick Jones: No Pasaran
AbCrit

Len Green reviews Patrick Jones: No Pasaran recently on view at the PS45 Gallery, Exeter, March 10 – April 9, 2017. Green begins: “The exhibition “No Pasaran” represents a life-long artistic journey by Patrick Jones, a journey which illustrates how he and his work have been affected by artistic influences from America and Europe. The […]

Patricia Satterlee’s Painterly Silence
Hyperallergic

Thomas Micchelli writes about the paintings of Patricia Satterlee whose exhibition Already Gone is on view at the Martin Art Gallery of Muhlenberg College, PA, through May 26, 2017. Micchelli writes: “These forms are limitlessly varied and undeniably strange… Satterlee puts these motifs through their formal paces — rotating and mirroring them; reducing them to […]

Joan Waltemath @ Anita Rogers
Steven Alexander Journal

Steven Alexander blogs about Joan Waltemath: Fecund Algorithms at Anita Rogers Gallery, New York, on view through June 1, 2017. Alexander writes: “Waltemath’s rich surfaces are built with a dizzying variety of materials, and her process occupies an uncanny zone between precision and spontaneity, with the physicality of the material being always present. Like visualized […]

Rauschenberg: The Confidence Man of American Art
New York Review of Books

Jed Perl reviews Robert Rauschenberg recently on view at Tate Modern, London. The exhibition will be on view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York from May 21 – September 17, 2017, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from November 4 – March 25, 2018. Perl writes: “The trouble with Robert Rauschenberg is that adventure and […]

Shared Spaces: Dona Nelson Brings Back The Figure
artcritical

Hearne Pardee reviews Dona Nelson: models stand close to the paintings at Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, on view through May 13, 2017. Pardee begins: “Dona Nelson’s new works excite not just with their vigorous improvisation and inventive use of materials but with a new interactivity among the paintings themselves. After deconstructing conventional painting with […]