Contributed by Emma Stolarski / Plant life is one of nature’s masterpieces. Botanical beauty, medicine, and ecological systems are integrated in every part of our lives, whether we think about it or not. Despite being here well before us and defining us as humans, plants are having an especially unique […]
Gallery shows
Medrie MacPhee, David Humphrey, and the power of recognition
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / In the 1940s, Philip Guston noted that the problem with figurative art was that it “vanishes into recognition.” By 1960, he was griping about the conceit that abstract art was “autonomous, pure and for itself.” The tension implied by these two conflicting but evidently valid […]
The “whorish porous” in the work of Angela Dufresne
Contributed by Andrew Woolbright / Angela Dufresne’s dual shows at Yossi Milo Gallery and M+B Los Angeles provide an opportunity to assess the full breadth of this influential figurative painter’s practice. The two shows, opened in tandem, nearly emptied her studio. The exhibits pose new paths forward from John Currin […]
The political imperative: Gatson, Humphrey, Williams, Worth in Chelsea
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / The clash between Donald Trump’s nascent fascism and America’s liberal traditions, brought to a head by the murder of George Floyd and its aftermath and exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, made the 2020 election the most important one since Abraham Lincoln prevailed in 1860. In […]
Benjamin Pritchard and Natasha Wright: Dark, murky, and subterranean
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Recently, Natasha Wright and Benjamin Pritchard had concurrent solo exhibitions at the John Davis Gallery in Hudson, NY. Both painters are drawn to a raw style of power painting that conjures Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in the pre-drip years, when they were thinking about Jungian analysis, the […]
A three-hour tour: Selected Bushwick galleries
As some readers may remember, I went to the University of Connecticut for my MFA degree, and until last year, I taught an MFA seminar up in Storrs. These days my schedule doesn’t allow taking those beautiful foliage tours up to Storrs each week, so I invited the first- and second-year students for […]
Rejecting the New: Abstract painting in the 1980s
This month New York painters and critics are talking about “Reinventing Abstraction,” an exhibition of paintings from the 1980s curated by Raphael Rubinstein. His incisive selection includes one painting each by Carroll Dunham, Louise Fishman, Jonathan Lasker, Mary Heilmann, Bill Jensen, Stephen Mueller. Elizabeth Murray, Thomas Nozkowski, David Reed, Joan […]
Charles Cohan: Losing the original amidst repetition
Charles Cohan, “MGP09.X-XVII,” 2010, colagraph print, 46 x 40,” edition of one. For the next day or two, I’ll be lurking around the museums and galleries in DC. One of my favorite DC galleries is Curator’s Office, Andrea Pollan’s micro-gallery/office space on 14th Street. She shows small-scale […]