Josh Smith at Deitch Studios
The best works are vibrant and fun, and show the chops of a painter who takes delight in straightforward, rambunctious picture making.
Linda Cross at the James W. Palmer Gallery, Vassar College and the Beacon Institute of Rivers and Estuaries
She doesn’t paint so much as build her pictures…they seem to convey the reality of water stopped up with manmade detritus.
Zhang Huan at Pace Wildenstein
With Zhang’s Rulai one senses the conflicting elements of life and death within the gray ash.
Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention at the Jewish Museum
Transgressive, experimental, fiercely individualistic, Man Ray evaded any categories not of his own creation.
Demons, Yarns & Tales: Tapestries by Contemporary Artists at James Cohan Gallery
Among thirteen tapestries commissioned from contemporary artists, the most interesting are those in which the medium adds a level of meaning to the image.
West Coast Minimalism: Four New York Shows
We still have much to learn about California’s cool recasting of New York’s cold Minimalism, but these shows provide a good place to start.
Erick Johnson Parallelogram Paintings at Heskin Contemporary
Once the complexity of the paintings’ under-layers have revealed themselves, we are in a position to appreciate the way in which these paintings offer up to us a visual metaphor of their own making.
Victor Pesce and William Carroll at the Elizabeth Harris Gallery
Pesce freeze’s the moment, Carroll celebrates transience, and together they create a deeply meaningful and thoughtful dialogue.
Phillip Taaffe at Gagosian
Taaffe’s pure decorativeness nevertheless embraces, almost as fetish, the visible husks of signs.
Winter White at Tria Gallery
Even in less jovial days of January, whiteness continues to command powerful associations.