The experience in this richly diverse exhibition is not of transition so much as consolidation: the new works, whether big loopy abstractions in fat confident brushstrokes or weirdo figuration, seem legitimate outgrowths of the precious, tight, miniaturist Siena of old.

Franz West at Gagosian Gallery

Karen Bookatz on Andy Warhol and Dan Flavin

Regardless of the medium he works in, Johns’s busy, agile yet weirdly reticent hand presents an oxymoronic mix of attributes, being at once tentative and emphatic.

Marcel Dzama’s drawings evoke the ethos of an adult dreamscape while recalling a style of childrenís picture book.

His new show opens Thursday, October 30

As a painter, Courbet ravishes a nude in the same manner as he would a tree or a trout: for the visual evidence of its expressive physicality.

For an abstract painter of her generation, the older distinctions between figurative and abstract art, or between politically critical art and the consumer products of mass culture cease to have much importance. Perhaps that is why her essentially cheerful art shows no signs of th angst which inspired so many of the pioneering Abstract Expressionists.

Like Henry Darger, Ku refers to a mindset populated by children who undermine confidence in the world as it is. She presents disturbing tableaux, meditations on transgressions that make no sense, that seem to come out of nowhere.

McCarthy’s chimerical hybrid creations are sphinx-like. Mysterious and inscrutable, their individual characteristics undermine any symbolic reading. They are rooted in the real world, but also convey a complete sense of otherness.