Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / The Trump administration has tried to physically cordon off Mexico from the United States, and presumably would just as soon exclude the country from America’s cultural orbit as well. From that perspective, the Whitney’s judiciously conceived exhibition “Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art” is also slyly defiant. Most immediately, … read more… “Vida Americana: A grand hemispheric embrace”
Art and TV: Professor T, an extraordinary burst of mind
Contributed by Laurie Fendrich / Boy did the otherwise on-the-mark Guardian television critic Lucy Mangan get it wrong. In her 2017 review of the Flemish detective series Professor T, she dismissed the show as “thin gruel” with “morsels pilfered from the greats” (by which she meant such television shows as House, Sherlock, Morse, and Monk). … read more… “Art and TV: Professor T, an extraordinary burst of mind”
Noticing and being noticed: an interview with Lisa Corinne Davis
Contributed by Sangram Majumdar / Lisa Corinne Davis, whose solo is on view at Pamela Salisbury through November 2, is an abstract painter known for her engaging explorations of map imagery, codes, and drawing systems. Recently she has been thinking about the destablization resulting from Covid, politics, and the current cultural focus on race and … read more… “Noticing and being noticed: an interview with Lisa Corinne Davis”
Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide: Mid-fall 2020
There is a bit of urgency to get out and see some shows in the next few weeks because it looks like we might be faced with another wave of Covid and, thus, another lockdown. In related news, the election is underway, so don’t forget to go out and vote. Of course it goes without … read more… “Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide: Mid-fall 2020”
Between object and metaphor: Berger, Lledós, and Uchiyama
Contributed by Karen Schifano / Reacting to the overtly emotional critical response to Abstract Expressionism, Frank Stella sought to refine Greenbergian formalism by reducing painting to its value as an object and nothing more. He is famous for saying, “What you see is what you see,” and influenced an entire school of art, Minimalism, that … read more… “Between object and metaphor: Berger, Lledós, and Uchiyama”
Michelle Vaughan presents forty conservative women
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Walking into Michelle Vaughan’s show at Theodore:Art, visitors are confronted with a small oak bookcase, desk, and chair in the center of the gallery. The walls are lined with forty framed portraits of notable conservative women, meticulously rendered in faded pastels on gray paper, that seem to be drawn from … read more… “Michelle Vaughan presents forty conservative women”
Art and TV: L’Art du Crime
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / France produces some superb television, but you could be forgiven for entertaining skepticism about L’Art du Crime, which at first blush scans as one extended meet-cute: a tough, dyspeptic, and uncultured flic is in the doghouse and gets assigned to the “cultural property” investigative unit of France’s Judicial Police. He’s … read more… “Art and TV: L’Art du Crime”
The painterly photographs of Jan Groover
Contributed by Patrick Neal / I’ve been thinking a lot about the work of photographer Jan Groover. This started a few months ago when the artist and critic David Ambrose mentioned her, and I learned she had been a long-term faculty member at SUNY Purchase and teacher of the wildly popular photographer Gregory Crewdson. Scanning … read more… “The painterly photographs of Jan Groover”
Interview with Gideon Bok: “The color I see”
Contributed by Sangram Majumdar / I have known Gideon Bok’s paintings from before I knew Gideon. Like many of his musical idols, he has an unusual cult following that eagerly awaits the twists and turns in his work, which manages to maintain a thematic focus while, at the same time, finding new territory to explore. … read more… “Interview with Gideon Bok: “The color I see””
Fast, unfussy, bright: An interview with Meghan Brady
Contributed by Sangram Majumdar / Recently, I have been admiring the images of Meghan Brady’s large-scale works on paper that she’s been posting on Instagram. The images prompted me to revisit the narrative I had arrived at about her work, and to investigate further. So, on the occasion of her current exhibition “Said + Done” … read more… “Fast, unfussy, bright: An interview with Meghan Brady”