Criticism
Tuesday, April 21st, 2020
The American artist Kara Walker poses questions about slavery’s history and legacy with a major UK commission. ...
Wednesday, April 8th, 2020
The work of earlier artists can be found in scenes from this expat Russian painter’s adolescence. ...
Thursday, January 23rd, 2020
An exhibition that follows a fashion designer as she channels the spirit of her times ...

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to “In Search of Lost Time” by Eric Karpeles

Thanks to the very fully annotated correspondence, in 38 volumes, we know a great deal about Marcel Proust’s tastes in visual art. When young he frequented the Louvre, went to the Low Countries and, under the spell of John Ruskin, traveled to see France’s medieval churches. He devoted long essays to Gustave Moreau and Monet, … Continued

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

Abstract Expressionism: A World Elsewhere curated by David Anfam at Haunch of Venison

We need to understand properly the Americanness of Abstract Expressionism, without treating it either as a triumph of chauvinistic mythmaking or as an episode in the Cold War.

Baker Overstreet, Sequined Cyclone Sequence, 2008. Acrylic and latex on canvas, 48 by 62 inches. Cover NOVEMBER 2008: The Continental Bathosphere, 2008. Acrylic and latex on canvas, 62 by 48 inches. Images courtesy of Fredericks & Freiser, New York.
Saturday, November 1st, 2008

Baker Overstreet: Follies at Fredericks & Freiser

Baker Overstreet at Fredericks and Freiser

Friday, October 17th, 2008

Untitled (Vicarious): Photographing the Constructed Object at Gagosian Gallery

This adventurous photography survey, pairing historical and contemporary examples of sculptural construction and assemblage as subject matter, includes David Smith, László Moholy-Nagy, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, James Welling, Gregory Crewdson, Thomas Demand and Wolfgang Tillmans.

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

Nick Miller: Truckscapes at the New York Studio School

Just as many Matisse drawings and paintings made in Nice in the 1920s and 30s incorporate a representation of himself making the work of art, so Miller includes images of his working space in his landscapes. The effect is to bring us into the working process.

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

Bridget Riley and Peter Doig at the Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris

In his first dispatch from Paris, Mick Finch ponders simultaneous shows of two artists, Bridget Riley and Peter Doig, both active in Britain but from different generations, whose contrastive relations to Post-Impressionism proved instructive.

Ching Ho Cheng, The Certainty of Blue IX, 1994. Charcoal, graphite and pastel on torn rag paper, 38-1/2 x 50 inches. Courtesy Shepherd & Derom Galleries.
Sunday, October 12th, 2008

Ching Ho Cheng at Shepherd & Derom Galleries

Ching Ho Cheng at Shepherd & Derom Galleries

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

NOTES FROM… North Carolina

In the first of a new series of dispatches from around the US and the world by regular contributors, GREG LINDQUIST charts developments in his native North Carolina

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

Night

Nightfall can inspire fascination with the starry sky, optimistic hopes for fulfilled sexual desire, or at least anticipation of sleep. But it can also cause anxiety if you are lonely, which is why van Gogh described The Night Café (1988), at MoMA, as showing a place where “dark forces lurked and suppressed human passions could suddenly explode.”

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

Julian Hoeber: All That is Solid Melts into Air at Blum & Poe

Collectively, these sculptures look like death masks cast from Aztec sacrifices. Each embodies the magical absurd-beyond-belief-because-it’s-so-true realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.