Abstraction
Howard Hodgkin: Absent Friends
Evening Standard
Matthew Collings reviews Howard Hodgkin: Absent Friends at the National Portrait Gallery, London, on view through June 18, 2017. Collings writes: “[the show] … emphasises that [Hodgkin] would cling to subject matter as a taking-off point even though he always departed into abstract realms — but always returned as well, making it clear somehow that […]
David Reed: Over the Edge
The Art Section
Deanna Sirlin writes about the work of David Reed on the occasion of Painting Paintings (David Reed)1975 on view from April 1- May 21, 2017 at 356 S. Mission Rd, Los Angeles, California (and recently on view at Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University and Gagosian Gallery, New York). Sirlin observes: “In each decade of his life […]
Joan Mellon @ Carter Burden Gallery
Village Voice Arts
R.C. Baker reviews paintings by Joan Mellon at Carter Burden Gallery, New York, on view through March 23, 2017. Baker writes that “[Mellon’s] abstractions can evoke the sense of a searching, back-and-forth discussion — not to mention the occasional heated argument.”
On Georgia O’Keeffe, In and Out of Sight
Brooklyn Rail
Gaby Collins-Fernandez considers the work of Georgia O’Keeffe. Collins-Fernandez concludes “The openness with which O’Keeffe considers observation allows a viewer to track formal similarities between the works. It’s just that what she was looking at was not so limited—her dreams and thoughts, photographs, landscapes, art she’d seen, edges, shadows, shapes. This variety, and the ease […]
Mor Faye & Ernest Mancoba
New York Times
Holland Cotter reviews Mor Faye: The Untitled Series, Works On Paper, 1969-84 at Skoto Gallery (through March 18) and Ernest Mancoba at Aicon Gallery (through April 8). Cotter writes: “Stylistically, [Mor Faye’s] work is kaleidoscopic, the binder being its propulsive energy. This is fabulously inventive picture-making. I can easily imagine young painters delighting in it, […]
Painting & Structure
AbCrit
John Bunker reviews the recent exhibition Painting & Structure at the Kennington Residency, London. The show featured works by Daniel Sturgis, Mali Morris, Sophia Starling, Andrea Medjesi-Jones, Kes Richardson, and James Campion. Bunker writes: “This show brings together an interesting mix of painters who tend to ‘play’ with the tension between crafted excess and severe […]
Petra Cortright @ 1301PE
LA Times
Christopher Knight reviews the recent exhibition Petra Cortright: quack doctor violet “saltwater fish” at 1301PE, Los Angeles. Knight begins: “Cortright’s paintings wedge themselves between the celebrated history of gestural art, mostly Expressionist and abstract, and the past generation’s frantic upheaval of established visual norms generated by the emergence and now ubiquity of digital imagery.”
Peter Halley: Paintings from the 1980s
Saturation Point
Piers Veness reviews Peter Halley: Paintings from the 1980s at Modern Art, London, on view through March 18, 2017. Veness writes that the paintings on view “[return] us to the familiar shapes, colours and textures of Peter Halley – the hard-lined geometry of Glowing and Burnt-Out Cells with Conduit (1982), for example, with its characteristic […]
Ralph Coburn’s Random Sequence
New City Art
Stephen F. Eisenman reviews Ralph Coburn’s Random Sequence at the Arts Club of Chicago, on view through April 22, 2017. Eisenman writes: “what is most remarkable is that Coburn’s multi-section paintings incorporate choice: the owner-curator is expected to rearrange the parts as she wishes. The idea, which has its origins in Dada with Jean Arp […]
Elise Ansel: Dialogue
ARTnews
Alfred Mac Adam reviews the recent exhibition Elise Ansel: Dialogue at Danese/Corey Gallery, New York. Mac Adam writes: “Ansel investigates the ‘dialogues’ her paintings establish with the great masters … We can identify three moments in the gestation of Ansel’s version: first, her contemplation of the original in one form or another (in person, in […]
Victor Pasmore @ Pallant House Gallery
AbCrit
Robin Greenwood reviews Victor Pasmore: Towards a New Reality at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, on view through June 11, 2017. Greenwood concludes: “… right from the off, his paintings show an interest in spatiality and volume, starting with the Cézanne-esque Bradman Still Life of 1929, which emphasises rounded three-dimensionality over planar flatness; and continuing right […]
Beyond the Surface: Howard Hodgkin (1932–2017)
Apollo Magazine
Martin Gayford’s 2010 profile of painter Howard Hodgkin (1932–2017), republished to mark the artist’s passing this week at age 84. Gayford notes that “[Hodgkin’s] work is deeply paradoxical. For one thing, it frequently looks abstract at first and even second glance, but it is actually figurative and rooted in his experience… Hodgkin is an intensely emotional […]
Cy Twombly @ the Pompidou
London Review of Books
Alice Spawls reviews works by Cy Twombly at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, on view through April 24, 2017. Spawls notes: “For all that his paintings groan under the weight of writing about them, and their own allusiveness (many feature lines of poetry or have ‘poetic’ titles), Twombly wasn’t an ideas artist. He disagreed with the […]
David Reed: Clarity of Facture
artcritical
James Hyde reviews the recent exhibition Painting Paintings (David Reed) 1975 at Gagosian Gallery, New York. Hyde writes: “Part of the interest of the work, then and now, is how it distills painterliness. The schema is simple—each painting contains roughly a dozen horizontal bands of red or black alternating with white or off-white. The canvas […]
Elliott Green @ Pierogi
Hamptons Art Hub
Peter Malone reviews Elliott Green: Human Nature at Pierogi Gallery, New York, through March 26, 2017. Malone writes: “What’s unique about Elliott Green is how he strides confidently right over the rumbling fracture. Brandishing all manner of surface gymnastics, he takes the staid genre of landscape painting and puts it through a gantlet of techniques […]
Douglas Witmer’s Simplicity
Two Coats of Paint
Becky Huff Hunter reviews Douglas Witmer: Dubh Glas at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia, on view through March 12, 2017. Hunter writes: “Each work in Witmer’s austere Winterbrook (2015‒17) series of six small panels brings out a different relational quality between paint and canvas: black wash opens up the flawed pores of the canvas grain; dense, dry paint […]
Katharina Grosse: Interview
Brooklyn Rail
Phong Bui interviews painter Katharina Grosse whose work is on view at Gagosian Gallery, New York, through March 11, 2017. Grosse comments: “I think color is such an interesting analytical aspect of painting. It can sit anywhere. It can fit into anything. It can unify or break up the hierarchical orderliness of how we see the […]
Jack Whitten: Interview
The Paris Review Daily
Yevgeniya Traps interviews painter Jack Whitten whose work is on view at Hauser & Wirth, New York through April 8, 2017. Whitten remarks: “I’m working with these units of paint, which I call tesserae—originally the word for ancient mosaics… The tesserae, in my mind, is the unit, it’s the thing that makes them. I can […]
Brenda Goodman: Interview
Magic Praxis
Clarity Haynes and Kate Hawes talk to painter Brenda Goodman whose work will be on view at Jeff Bailey Gallery (Booth 4.07) at NADA Art Fair, New York from March 2 – 5, 2017. Goodman comments: “I did [abstract paintings] for ten years and I felt like ‘I need more than this’ and that’s when […]
Tamara Gonzales: Interview
Brooklyn Rail
Raymond Foye and Peter Lamborn Wilson interview painter Tamara Gonzales whose work was recently on view at at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York. Gonzales comments: “Art school was so much fun, it seemed like a vacation from my life—a pleasure… But the idea that then you come out and you’re making art about the […]