Award-winning NYC blogazine, primarily about painting
Sunday, August 1, 2021
Contributed by Paul Laster / Blurring the boundary between abstraction and figuration, Ilana Savdie makes colorful canvases that take the eye on a rollercoaster ride through splashes of paint, flesh and body parts. A recent Yale MFA grad who has continued to work in New Haven over the past year […]
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 […]
By Laurie Fendrich / Critics have been lavish in their praise of the Brown, queer-themed figurative paintings by the Pakistani-born Brooklyn artist Salman Toor, currently on view in the Whitney Museum’s first-floor lobby gallery (free of charge to the public). And rightly so. Toor’s pictures touch the heart, and his […]
Contributed by Elisabeth Condon / I’ve been stalking Deborah Brown’s paintings on Instagram, excited about a new series of still lifes. As far as I can tell they originated with #selfportraitwithzeusandpeacockscreen, posted on August 3rd. The painting features dramatic black and white, pushes color out to the sides and flings […]
Contributed by Rebecca Chace / Julie Heffernan is primarily known for her large-scale figurative paintings that seamlessly merge a rococo sensibility with contemporary content. Since “Hunter Gatherer,” her 2018 solo show at PPOW in New York, she has been working on her first graphic novel, fusing drawing with memoir and […]
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 […]
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, […]
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Susan Rothenberg’s invariably forceful and confident paintings have a beguiling twitchiness, created out of layers of agitated brushwork from a restless hand. In her latest solo at Sperone Westwater, she continues to embrace a non-serial approach, presenting paintings and drawings of various objects and animals […]
Contributed by Adam Simon / One of the under-appreciated aspects of art viewing is the way that a given work establishes a certain relationship with a viewer. Mark Rothko famously claimed that “lots of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures.” He may have been trying to […]
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / For a while it looked as though William Powhida might be painting himself into an existential corner. His mission was to sensitize his audience to the hypocritical churn of the art market – to the reality that what made producing something putatively nobler and loftier than […]
Conversation with Louise Fishman
Louise Fishman, Zero at the Bone, 2010. Oil on linen. 70 x 60”. Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York.
Contributed by Sharon Butler / In September 2012, I sat down with ...
Art and TV: Professor T, an extraordinary burst of mind
Koen de Bouw as Professor Jasper Teerlinck on Professor T
Contributed by Laurie Fendrich / Boy did the otherwise on-the-mark Guardian television critic Lucy Mangan get it wrong. In her 2017 ...
Studio visit with Daniel Wiener
During my first visit to Daniel Wiener's studio, we talked about his Apoxie-Sculpt head series that fuse a 1960s psychedelic sensibility with collective angst, his idiosyncratic process, and an exploration ...
Alyssa Klauer’s queer phantasmagoria
Contributed by Patrick Neal / Is the detectable hand of the artist evidence of a unique creator, or is gesture mainly indicative of earlier painters’ touches, the ghosts of art ...
Hannah Wohl’s compelling dissection of the New York art world
To understand how all the moving parts or art careers fit together, sociologist Hannah Wohl spent countless hours trailing collectors at art fairs, talking to dealers, making studio visits with ...
Andrew Cranston’s dazzling seduction
Contributed by Jacob Patrick Brooks / I try not to go to galleries alone. If I don’t have someone to moderate me and make sure that I spend an appropriate ...
Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide: July 2021
This month we're recommending all the excellent group shows, especially the ones where old favorites hang next to younger artists who weren't on our radar.
The inside creates the outside, and vice versa
A conversation between artists Robin Hill and Elisa D’Arrigo, whose solo show at Elizabeth Harris is on view through July 31.
Art and TV: L’Art du Crime
L’Art du Crime: Éléonore Bernheim stars as the plucky art historian and Nicolas Gob is the cranky detective
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / France produces some superb television, but you could ...
History: Artist-run galleries in NYC in the 1950s and 1960s
At artist-run galleries, the conversation centers on art rather than commerce. Alternative spaces provide a place for unknown and under-recognized artists to mount exhibitions, for curators to organize their first thematic shows, and for established artists ...
