Ever since I’ve known artist-writer-curator Stephen Truax he has been in a state of what curator Anne Luther calls “hopeful doubt,” perpetually examining what painting and art might be in the 21st century. On the occasion of “How Will I Know,” his first NYC solo show, Two Coats of Paint invited Truax to share some … read more… “Ideas and Influences: Stephen Truax”
Christopher Manning’s semblances and manipulations
Contributed by Laura Farrell / Through Christopher Manning’s current solo show “Everything as Perfect as it Seems,” the Fine Arts Gallery at Westchester Community College comes alive. The show wisely centers the manipulated Polaroids for which Manning is best known, and some 200 of these images line the gallery walls. Also featured are framed images … read more… “Christopher Manning’s semblances and manipulations”
A lobby symposium: Federico, Haske, Loft, Osman, Porcaro & Saltz
The Standard Motors Building in Long Island City is home to a spacious lobby gallery, organized and maintained by Deborah Freedman and Marjorie VanDyke. Freedman and VanDyke, printmakers who operate VanDeb Editions in the same building as the gallery, invited Joe Haske to curate a show, and he assembled “A Symposium,” a congenial exhibition featuring … read more… “A lobby symposium: Federico, Haske, Loft, Osman, Porcaro & Saltz”
Allison Schulnik’s frenzied equestrian feminisms
Contributed by Torey Akers / Allison Schulnik’s current solo show at ZieherSmith, “Hoof II,” posits personal mythology as a material condition for world-building. Each heavily impastoed piece functions simultaneously as portal and detonation site, issuing a challenge to the institutional semantics framing femininity in contemporary art dialogue. “Hoof II” expands Schulnik’s long-standing fascination with female … read more… “Allison Schulnik’s frenzied equestrian feminisms”
Katie Bell’s Miami adventure
Contributed by Rob Kaiser-Schatzlein / Katie Bell‘s work, comprising scavenged construction debris, skirts the line between sculpture and assemblage. Bell combed Miami for a month to source the materials for “Backsplash,” her most recent solo show, which opened at Locust Projects September 10. Among the must-finds on her list were, as she says, “scraps of drywall, scraps … read more… “Katie Bell’s Miami adventure”
Sue Post: Intuitively chosen constraints
Contributed by Franklin Einspruch / Among several of my quixotic projects is to farm a heretofore neglected front yard for vegetables. It is, as they say, a work in progress. I am in charge of this project, and yet I am not. Much depends on my scant knowledge, my incomplete attention, my limited power to … read more… “Sue Post: Intuitively chosen constraints”
Quick study
This edition includes links to upcoming Open Studio dates, Clyfford Still’s pastels, the Miami art fair participant lists, Thornton Willis upstate, the gold toilet at the Guggenheim, the resurrection of Ginzel’s much-loved List, a review of Molly Crabapple’s show at Postmasters, George Bush’s new painting project, and more.
Art and film: Bruce Conner, escape artist
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Evident in the transfixing Bruce Conner retrospective “Bruce Conner: It’s All True” at MoMA is a probing eye that seeks out departure of one kind or another. Eclectic and countercultural, his rather Rauschenbergian arc reflects the artist’s energetic and sometimes unsubtle insistence on embracing the world’s stark, unsettling inconstancy – … read more… “Art and film: Bruce Conner, escape artist”
IRL: The Study Room at the Metropolitan Museum
Contributed by Kate Liebman / The Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Drawings and Prints is celebrating its centennial this year, and has devoted a wall to “one masterpiece” per week through April 30, 2017. This week’s masterpiece was a portrait of a church man drawn by Jean Fouquet in the mid-15th century. I stopped by to check … read more… “IRL: The Study Room at the Metropolitan Museum”
Julie Torres’ dispatches from Hudson, part 2
As promised in part one earlier this week, Julie Torres has sent her second report from Hudson‘s thriving gallery scene. Julie was a longtime – and much-loved! – Brooklyn resident who recently moved upstate, and while we miss having her nearby, we’re itching to visit her new neighborhood for ourselves. Looking at the photo round-up … read more… “Julie Torres’ dispatches from Hudson, part 2”