Robert Ryman PaceWildenstein until January 8 (534 W. 25th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, 212-929-7000). Milton Avery: Onrushing Waves Knoedler & Company until January 29 (19 E. 70th Street, between Madison and Fifth Avenues, 212-794-0550). Just as representation alters the way we view reality, abstraction has the same effect on representation itself: it has … Continued

“David Reed” at Max Protetch until December 23 (511 W. 22 Street between 10th & 11th Avenues, 212-633-6999). “Garth Evans, Watercolors” at Lori Bookstein until January 7 (37 W. 57th Street, 212-750-0949). “Lisa Hoke: The Gravity of Color” at Elizabeth Harris until December 23 (529 W. 20th Street between 10th & 11th Avenues, 212-463-9666). “Alfred … Continued

“de Kooning: An American Master” By Mark Stevens & Annalyn Swan Knopf, 2004 752 pages, $35 With typical existentialist panache, Francis Bacon coined the phrase “exhilarated despair,” an oxymoron that rings true for Willem de Kooning, whom Bacon admired. Not so much for his work, necessarily, which runs the gamut of emotions and sensations (although … Continued

Gilbert and George at Lehmann Maupin and at Sonnabend, Jesper Jest at Perry Rubenstein, Richard Tuttle at the Drawing Centre and Sarah McEneaney at Gallery Schlesinger

Tibor de Nagy Gallery 724 Fifth Avenue at 57th Street 212 262 5050 December 2, 2004 – January 8, 2005 Stuart Shils is an artist both of great refinement and dramatic emotion. His recent paintings at Tibor de Nagy were done in Ballycastle, on the wild northern coast of County Mayo, under the auspices of … Continued

Cheryl Pelavin 13 Jay Street, New York City December 2, 2004 – January 8, 2005 In the particularly inspired artist’s statement accompanying her exhibition, Tamara Gonzales touches on this past summer’s Donovan concert and the notion that plants can talk, then more pessimistically wonders if Americans are really interested in dying free. “It was looking … Continued

Sarah Moody Gallery of Art University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, Alabama 19 November – 19 December 2004 In an exhibition entitled “quanta,” at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Linda Francis shows paintings and drawings that draw on physics to premise patterns for the development of form in nature. Her work extrapolates form from a grid … Continued

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY September 23, 2004 to January 10, 2005 Manny Farber grew bored with non-objective painting (“I was just repeating myself”). Perhaps he grew tired of suppressing or transforming signs of empirical reality. It is certainly not obvious to strangers standing before the early work what … Continued