Never mind taking line for a walk: Richard Smith took painting for a kite ride. In the 1960s this British New Yorker occupied an aesthetic position on the borders of hard edge abstraction and Pop Art. An inveterate experimenter with the structure of his supports, Smith had pioneered the use of canvases that curved their fields of color into the viewer’s literal space in banquette-like constructions. Then, in the early 1970s, he radically loosened and lightened up, stretching patches of saturated fabric on irregularly disposed rods. Related to the experiments of artists such as Al Loving and Alan Shields, Richard Smith’s “kites”, as they came to be called, defined the cutting edge of painting with their elastic freedom. Flowers Gallery offers the first comprehensive display of this unique idiom seen in America in decades. DAVID COHEN
On view October 15 to November 14 at 529 West 20th Street, 3rd Floor, between 10th and 11th avenues, New York City, 212 439 1700. Opening Reception: Tuesday, October 20, 6 to 8 PM
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