Contributed by Patrick Ryan Bell / Tucked away in a cul-de-sac on Attorney Street in the Lower East Side and committed to ambitious exhibitions, Frisson […]
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Outsider Art Fair 2026: Hunters and prey
Contributed by Jac Lahav / Timothée Chalamet, the 30-year old actor, recently rage-baited internet audiences by saying he wouldn’t want to work in “ballet or […]
Sharon’s Substack / April 1, 2026
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Reading Gary Garrels’ remembrance of Brice Marden in Artforum in 2023, I encountered a Rothko quote to the effect that paintings are about basic human emotions – tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. I was not inclined to think about my work in that way, so I spent some time reading about basic human emotions, which, in my placid New England family, were generally dismissed without much examination….
NYC Selected Gallery Guide, April 2026
Contributed by Sharon Butler / In “New York Real Estate and the Ruin of American Art,” an article that recently appeared in the winter issue of October, artist Josh Kline points out that art has long been curated, funded, and institutionalized by the very galleries and collectors who profit from it and the schools that train its participants, without necessarily serving the majority of artists. Most NYC artists are familiar with the story Josh is telling, as many have weathered previous market downturns. Some can remember the 1989 stock market crash, the devastation of 9/11, and the 2008 recession. Now, after what has become a years-long rout, even A-listers like Josh feel compelled to rethink the cost of maintaining a NYC studio as the market for their work has changed.
Hudson Valley (+ Vicinity) Selected Gallery Guide, April 2026
Contributed by Karlyn Benson / Every month, it seems there is one day when there are so many openings and events in the Hudson Valley that it is physically impossible to attend them all. For upstate art lovers, this challenging experience is happening twice, on both Saturday, April 4 and Saturday, April 11. The first Saturday in April brings new exhibitions at SEPTEMBER, Philip Douglas Fine Art, Front Room Gallery, Jane Street Art Center, Headstone…
Barbara Takenaga’s pinballing fantasia
Contributed by Peter Schroth / Barbara Takenaga’s current exhibition at DC Moore, “Parallax,” picks up from her 2024 exhibit “Whatsis” and continues an arc roughly twenty years in the making. The works are acrylic on canvas and panel and range from diminutive rectangles to monumental multi-paneled pieces.Takenaga iterates her signature techniques of pouring and handwork seamlessly, in a lead-and-follow approach that balances randomness, intuition, and calculation.
Turn Gallery: The 1990s in collective memory
Contributed by Zach Seeger / Figuration, transformation, and materiality are on display at Turn Gallery in the group show “We Are Parts.” The work of Lily Rose Fine, Olivia Springberg, C Lucy Whitehead, and Caroline Zurmely nods gracefully to fragmentary bodies and mementos of the deceptively carefree 1990s aesthetic, vaulting dated, picayune fashion into collective memory and saving it from dissolution into the vast sea of pedestrian art.
Two Coats Resident Artist Dale Emmart, April 12–17, 2026
Contributed by Sharon Butler / In April, Two Coats of Paint welcomes resident artist Dale Emmart. Her work reflects a sustained and expansive meditation on rope — in oil, ink on washi, woodcut, and artist books. For her, it is a widely evocative pictorial object owing to its sheer versatility. Essentially unchanged since the Egyptians first documented ropemaking in 4000 BCE, it admits of a remarkable range of associations: industriousness and energy, lethargy and repose, entanglement and freedom.
Springs Projects: Concerted vibes
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / “Personal Space,” the group show now up at Springs Projects, is especially impressive for the steady, uninflected confidence it reflects in art as a part of life, devoid of commercial pandering or sheepish self-doubt. Considerable credit for this virtue goes to Tommy White, co-founder of the gallery. As he hung the work, all made by his adult students from the Art Students’ League, and forged the show’s overall coherence, White consulted the artists to ensure that each individual voice was preserved. His curatorial hand is masterful, harmonizing seeming divergence and distinguishing apparent similarity. For a group show to sing, of course, the artists themselves need to possess a sufficiency of talent and heart. This gang does.
Lois Dodd: A balm against cynicism
Contributed by David Whelan / I first saw a Lois Dodd painting in 2004. View through Elliot’s Shack Looking South was part of a group show at our college gallery when I was a freshman. The painting absolutely stunned me and served as a touchstone throughout my education and early adulthood. Dodd’s solo show “A Radiant Simplicity” at The Art Gallery at Brooklyn College might have done the same for others.
Rick Briggs and Natasha Sweeten: On painting and writing
On March 15th, painters Natasha Sweeten and Rick Briggs sat down with Hearne Pardee to talk about their work, and about what it means to […]
Amelie Mancini: Longing and wonder
Contributed by Caroline Otis Heffron / Amelie Mancini’s debut solo exhibition at Massey Klein Gallery, offers poignant reflections on women, enticing viewers with harmonious colors and intricate patterns that initially convey a sense of contentment and balance. But her layering techniques, involving translucent paint, and repeating motifs – reminiscent of Vuillard, Matisse, and Modersohn-Becker – encourage closer study of gesture and expression. As the viewer moves in, archetypal faces emerge with expressions of longing and wonder, leaving ambivalence.
St. Francis at the Frick
Contributed by Ken Buhler / There is an unsubstantiated claim in Catholic lore that the number of books written about St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1181–1226) is second only to the number written about Jesus. But keen interest in the life of St. Francis has been continuous. During his lifetime, his many followers had already established a religious order in his name. My particular interest began towards the end of the twentieth century, when my job in the Frick Collection afforded me many hours, essentially alone, in the galleries with Giovanni Bellini’s much-beloved St. Francis in the Desert, which depicts an ecstatic St. Francis in an idyllic landscape.
Tracy Burtz and Claire McConaughy: Vulnerability and resilience at The Painting Center
Contributed by Elizabeth Johnson / Two solo exhibitions at The Painting Center, Claire McConaughy’s “Uncultivated” and Tracy Burtz’s “What She Knows,” respectively present external and internal versions of powerful female spaces, generating an unexpected synthesis.
Kathy Butterly’s small-scale magnitude
Contributed by Bill Arning / Kathy Butterly’s largest survey to date could, in theory, be boring. Thirty-five years of work in the same medium – highly glazed porcelain and earthenware – always at conspicuously small-scale, from four to 14 inches, might sound stultifying. You could perhaps imagine some visitors, having glanced at a sea of colored dots arranged on three massive irregular platforms in roughly chronological order, anticipating a hard slog and a rapid escape.
