PS1 Contemporary Art Center until September 25 22-25 Jackson Avenue at 46 Avenue, Long Island City, 718 784 2084 A version of this article first appeared in the New York Sun, July 20, 2006. If you missed “the body” as the de rigeur theme of artists at the “transgressive” cutting edge of avant garde art between, say, … Continued

Cheim & Read 547 W25 Street, between 10 and 11 Avenues, 212 242 7747 Until September 9 Like the artist it celebrates, “The New Landscape/The New Still Life: Soutine and Modern Art” is bursting with energy and ideas. The show presents Chaim Soutine 1893-1943) as a father figure of different traditions, American Abstract Expressionism and … Continued

New York Studio School 8 West 8 Street New York NY 10011 212 673 6466 March 30 to May 13, 2006 The achievement of the American artist Sandra Fisher  (1947–94) was overshadowed during her lifetime by her husband R.B. Kitaj and other School of London artists. Now, 12 years after Fisher’s  death from a cerebral hemorrhage, … Continued

Alexandre Gallery 41 East 57th Street, 13th Floor New York, New York 10022 212-755-2828 May 13 to June 23, 2006 Relationships between the individual and and the communal component of artistic achievement bedevil every generation. T.S. Eliot insisted that every innovation gestates in an affinity with indispensable predecessors. Robert Musil declared that ·”·it is only … Continued

Museum of Modern Art 11 W 53 Street New York City 212-708-9847 June 11–September 4, 2006 The literature surrounding the Douglas Gordon retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art emphasizes time and sociology, while I prefer to think of the work as sculpture; this makes the catalog, which is full of mass-media images, seem beside … Continued

Religion is a natural subject with Sri Lankan artists. “I am a Tamil and was a Hindu but now I am a Christian”, said one.” I am a Buddhist but I pray to the Virgin Mary”, said another. “I was informed that you were a Buddhist monk,” I mentioned to an artist, “is this true?” … Continued

Matthew Marks Gallery 522 West 22 Street New York City March 11 to April 22, 2006 Chasing a Ghost, Nan Goldin’s recent show of photographs and a 39-minute DVD projection, may be her most ambitious work to date. Goldin first became known in the 1980s for nervy, observant photos of the Lower Eastside party scene … Continued