Contributed by Sharon Butler / Farley Aguilar’s paintings, on view at Lyles & King, are based on vintage photographs of 1920s and ‘30s seaside beauty pageants and images of female Nazi collaborators having their heads shaved after World War II. The contrast is jarring at first but fits into an insightfully integrated sense of powerlessness … read more… “Farley Aguilar’s screamingly urgent figurative paintings”
Author: Editorial Assistant
Maya Brym: Exceedingly magnanimous
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Brooklyn artist Maya Brym’s vivid new paintings, on view at Frosch & Portmann through February 24, invigorate domestic life with a sense of lightness and clarity. Geometric shapes defined by stencils and masks are painted in bright colors with wide, transparent brushstrokes. The shapes conjure water bottles, bowls, fruit, potted … read more… “Maya Brym: Exceedingly magnanimous”
Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide: February 2019
February is a short month, which makes visiting all the shows that much harder, but before the onslaught of NYC art fairs in March (the 6th through 10th), try to visit some galleries, either IRL or online. After all, we can’t spend every minute obsessing over Adam Schiff’s investigations, the House Committee hearings, SC Mueller and the Russia probe, team Trump indictments, impeachment progress, … read more… “Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide: February 2019”
Fiction (and curatorial statement): THEY’RE MADE OUT OF MEAT
The following short story, “They’re Made Out of Meat,” was written by sci-fi writer Terry Bisson and published in Omni Magazine in 1990. An archly bizarre tale in which two higher-order extraterrestrials marvel at the fact that humans are composed of flesh and blood, it is the inspiration for an exhibition curated by Jennifer Coates at Platform Project Space. This inventive, wry piece of … read more… “Fiction (and curatorial statement): THEY’RE MADE OUT OF MEAT”
EJ Hauser: Innocence and wonder
Contributed by Sharon Butler / In her new painting exhibition “Barn Spirits” at Derek Eller, Brooklyn-based artist EJ Hauser features ungainly, diagram-like landscapes with flat, unmodulated color generated by way of a layered process that conjures screen-printing or crayon drawing. The new imagery, presentational rather than transformative, expands the substantially abstract visual language she introduced … read more… “EJ Hauser: Innocence and wonder”
Catalogue essay: Jennifer Riley’s Machine Series Paintings
Contributed by Sharon Butler / When Brooklyn artist Jennifer Riley began making large-scale abstract paintings using discarded laser-cut pieces of steel, she connected with a century of artists preoccupied with the deconstructed machine. They ranged from post-World War I Dadaists like Raoul Hausmann and Francis Picabia whose images of humans were crafted from machine parts, … read more… “Catalogue essay: Jennifer Riley’s Machine Series Paintings”
Artists’ spaces: The Painting Center
Contributed by Sharon Butler / I was on Facebook the other day and noticed Dana Gordon’s post about the history of The Painting Center. Back in the 1990s, when NYC galleries were centered in Soho, curators were more interested in video, installation, conceptual, and performance projects than they were in painting exhibitions. After a brief … read more… “Artists’ spaces: The Painting Center”
The materiality of written language
Contributed by Heather Bause Rubinstein / Joe Fyfe’s newest series of paintings at Nathalie Karg Gallery are packed with visual, poetic and intellectual punch. Fascinated by the possibilities of collaged-together textiles, Fyfe is pushing his work into more formal complexity. Also new is a recurring textual element: hand-painted enlargements of French poet Guillaume Apollinaire’s Calligrammes.
Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide: January 2019
Contributed by Sharon Butler / The new year brings good news for Bushwick gallery goers: The L Train, which was scheduled for a 15-month shutdown to undergo repairs beginning this year, is NOT shutting down. This is a welcome decision for the artists and galleries that live and work along the path of the L–Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Ridgewood … read more… “Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide: January 2019”
Art and Film: Cheapening the art world one toxic bite at a time
Contributed by Kristen Clevenson / The Price of Everything (2018), a documentary film directed by Nathaniel Kahn, seeks to assess the impact, influence, and inescapable role of money in the art world. In November, I attended a screening followed by a panel discussion featuring Pulitzer prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz, Hunter College professor and chair of art history … read more… “Art and Film: Cheapening the art world one toxic bite at a time”