These are the brave words that Josephine Halvorson, the painter, posted to Facebook in the early hours this fateful morning. Those of us with art to make or magazines to edit must be thankful for work, as a distraction but also a locus of resistance.

I now bless the good luck that led me and my guests to choose for discussion at The Review Panel next week the retrospective exhibitions of Marilyn Minter and Kerry James Marshall. This will focus attention on issues of gender and race, of representation, exploitation, beauty, humor, and critique. It forces us to examine long careers that have seen political and social changes in both directions that hopefully will offer lessons for these ominous times. And if not lessons, at least, perhaps, some fun.  DAVID COHEN

Reserve seats now

CORRECTION: Josephine Halvorson was a fellow of the French Academy in Rome in 2014-15. An earlier posting of this article stated inaccurately that she is presently a fellow of the American Academy in Rome.

The post “Time for action, for love, for art” appeared first on artcritical.

Last year, Andrew announced to his bereft mailing list of thousands that he’d be suspending the service. By then, however, artcritical has assembled a crew of listings editors covering the whole city, Philadelphia and Hudson. It took little persuading to invite Andrew to assume the mantle of our listings czar, to whip us into better shape and, with our developer François Huyghe, devise the technical means to arrange the list in Andrew’s beloved geographical orientation. THE LIST can be enjoyed multiple ways: WEEK AT A GLANCE affords daily summaries of openings and closings; CURRENT arranges everything by neighborhood; and there are columns for LECTURES/EVENTS and FUTURE SHOWS. Plus you can mail yourself a PDF and play with it to suit your needs. For a daily TIP from the editors, find us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

The success of this venture depends, however, on our community of users. To misquote NYPD, if you DON’T see something, say something. listings@artcritical.com copies straight to Andrew Ginzel’s inbox.

The post A Grand Alliance appeared first on artcritical.

And in honor of this momentous day, Tuesdays will henceforth see our weekly newsletter. Subscribers can expect picks from THE LIST, the most comprehensive resource of exhibitions and events in New York, and links to the latest features and reviews at artcritical, as well, of course, as news about The Review Panel.

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We like to think that all the dialogues, roundtables and exchanges that we publish at artcritical are special in their own way: a scoop, some unique insights, an inspired gathering of wits.  But the latest entry in the “Studio Visit” category is quite literally a prize feature. The conversation between Philadelphia-based artists Michael Gallagher and Mary Claire Ramirez is the first artcritical prize offered at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.  Amongst the travel grants and other awards dispensed by faculty at the final MFA reviews that precede the Annual Student Exhibition at the Philadelphia institution (the nation’s oldest art academy) is a new prize that consists of editorial exposure in these pages.  Mary Claire Ramirez and her interviewer,  painter and Assistant Professor at PAFA Michael Gallagher, explore the hybrid nature of her work, the implications of the 2D-3D distinction, and the active role the viewer must play in making sense of her production.

artcritical is delighted and honored to extend its collaboration with the Pennsylvania Academy in this way.  David Cohen, our publisher and editor, is a Senior Visiting Critic in their MFA program, and the institution has for three years hosted The Review Panel Philadelphia  in which, coincidentally, Gallagher has participated.  The Review Panel has been described by theartblog.org as “the highlight of formal art criticism in Philadelphia.”

Our readers in Philadelphia have this weekend to catch the 114th Annual Student Exhibition at PAFA, which also includes graduating students from the BFA and Certificate programs there.  Ramirez is also participating in a group exhibition in New York City, “And Many More,” of nine graduating MFA students selected by the recently appointed Curator of Contemporary Art at PAFA, Jodi Throckmorton, at 33 Orchard on the Lower East Side, opening June 17.

Philadelphia coverage also extends to Edward Epstein’s review of the Frank Bramblett exhibition at the Woodmere Art Museum, on view through June 21. Dialogue, meanwhile, abounds at artcritical in multiple forms.  Associate Editor Noah Dillon continues his series of exchanges with artists and art world personnel focused on single, and singular, works in New York museums, Tell Me.  In the latest, painter Daniel Herr joins him to look at Willem de Kooning’s Easter Monday (1955 – 56) in the Met.

And check back soon for our next Studio Visit when Elena Sisto interviews Lisa Hoke on the occasion of her first solo show with Pavel Zoubok currently on view in Chelsea.

The post A Prize Interview appeared first on artcritical.

artcritical.com doesn’t aspire to be the journal of record when it comes to obituaries: we respond as any serious art magazine does when a giant leaves the field, but as in much of our coverage, the choice of artists and art world personalities to whom we pay tribute is determined less by editorial policy than by the passions of individual writers.  A case in point: two memorials posted today, May 7, honoring artists who fall short of a newspaper headline for reason of living quieter lives, chasing quirky visions, working at an obstinate scale or sheer consistent poor luck.  Longtime artcritical contributor David Brody offers a spirited reading of a painter of mythic, oddly iconic personages and a bestiary of their four-legged companions, Selina Trieff, who passed in January at the age of 81.  William Tucker, the legendary British-born sculptor, offers a fulsome, warm introduction, as it is for most of us, to his friend, James Adley, who also died recently at 83.  Besides the privilege of offering a platform to quality writing on subjects that matter to their authors, however, there is good journalistic sense in giving space to these overlooked individuals for the critical and historical insights their examined lives afford.  Mr. Tucker’s  quite detailed biographical sketch is riveting, for instance, on the subject of how American abstract painting galvanized certain British artists of his generation.   Like all good tributes, these offerings  impart a sense of relish at the persistence of the creative spirit.

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This Friday marks the inauguration of the 10th Spring season of The Review Panel. We’re very proud to have Vincent Katz, Martha Schwendener, and Christopher Stackhouse joining artcritical’s David Cohen at the National Academy Museum Friday 13th. They’ll be discussing Mamma Andersson at David Zwirner, Merlin James at Sikkema Jenkins, Heidi Howard at Nancy Margolis, and Titus Kaphar at Jack Shainman. If you haven’t seen these shows yet, we encourage you to: they’re great fodder for critical discourse, of which there will be plenty at the Review Panel, and we would love to have you participate in the debate.

artcritical has already had a strong discursive start to the year, of course. Setting the pace, our latest in the “Roundtable” series, a discussion on “The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World,” which is on view at MoMA through April 5th. Moderated by contributing editor Nora Griffin, the discussion featured painters and writers Carrie Moyer, Becky Brown,Dennis Kardon, Raphael Rubinstein and Jason Stopa. Small world: that Heidi Howard portrait is of Nora!

An insightful, sharp interview by Jeanne Wilkinson with artcritical contributor and painter Peter Malone was published earlier this week. Malone identifies as a conservative painter for his work’s fidelity to naturalism, but in doing so also affirms his edginess and novelty in an art world that can seem sometimes to be brimming with empty gestures at radicality. Aimée Brown Price, meanwhile, reviews an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Kenny Rivero set within an installation that recalls the young artist’s boyhood home in Washington Heights, edginess included.

Two book reviews, by Paul Maziar and Lee Ann Norman, reexamine work by two much-talked-about but little understood artists: Richard Tuttle and Dorothy Iannone, respectively. Early work by writer and artist Susan Bee, unseen for 30 years, was reviewed by poet and critic Margaret Graham.

Sadly, we have also had to pay respects to the passing of treasured members of New York’s art community: Jack Shainman Gallery’s Claude Simard (back in the summer) and more recently, painters Jane Wilson and Jake Berthot, and Metropolitan Museum curator Walter Liedtke. They will be missed.

But the work goes on and we’re very happy that you’re coming along for the ride. And that there’s plenty to talk about on the way.

The post An Early Spring: The Review Panel Season Debut, Friday 13th appeared first on artcritical.

Disputes and dialogues in the arts can last for a very long time. A friend and I, discussing the concept of primitivism recently, turned our attention to Primitivism and Twentieth-Century Art: A Documentary History. This compendium looks back to MoMA’s contentious 1984 blockbuster of similar title, which had led to a conflagration among critics, artists, and scholars about the power of representation and cultural privilege. The book was careful also to gather up materials dating right back to the turn of that century, showing how the terms and conflicts of the debate had developed over decades, if not centuries.

In a similar spirit, this month saw the re-emergence into topicality of artcritical’s December 2012 debate among contributors and guests, the Ken Johnson Affair. The New York Times critic (and, incidentally, veteran member of The Review Panel) Ken Johnson finds himself in hot water again with a review, this time, of an exhibition of new work by Michelle Grabner at James Cohan Gallery. (Grabner curated a floor of this year’s Whitney Biennial, the sole topic of The Review Panel this past April.) Johnson responded on Facebook to a letter to the editor by painter Amy Sillman, which had in the meantime circulated on Facebook. We have added their exchange as a document to our Ken Johnson Affair series.

Debate, however, is of the essence at artcritical. I reported two weeks ago on the recent conversation at the Jewish Museum, moderated by Bob Nickas with guests Joanne Greenbaum, Philip Taaffe, and Stanley Whitney, about the mindless young zombies supposedly taking over contemporary abstraction — a chic topic among many critics now, if not indeed since the middle of the last century! And this week saw the publication at artcritical of three contrasting but equally in-depth responses to Robert Gober‘s MoMA retrospective from Lee Ann Norman, Steve Locke, and Dennis Kardon, which is bound to stir up further argument.

Amelia Rina tackles the discourse around Christopher Williams in her review of his retrospective at the same institution. Stephen Maine and Peter Malone both address the way art is displayed in their recent reviews — Maine with a write up of simultaneous solo shows by Judy Pfaff at Pavel Zoubok and Loretta Howard galleries, Malone with an essay on cluster exhibitions featuring several concurrent solo shows packed into single spaces.

These are brief snippets of larger and longer discussions within the world of art, but each one contributes something important to the dialogue with which it engages. As always, we encourage readers to reach out to us in the comments sections of all our posts, and to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We love talking with you and value what you tell us: your voice is part of these ongoing debates, discussions, and dialogues.

The post Ken Johnson and Mindless Young Zombies appeared first on artcritical.

Last weekend’s marathon seems to be exerting an unexpected influence on the world of art, or at least of artcritical.  Endurance-testing art projects (hopefully with resulting exhilaration) are a common denominator in two of the exhibitions selected for the next installment of The Review Panel. On November 21 Sarah Douglas, Edward Epstein and Lance Esplund will join moderator David Cohen to think about A Lot of Sorrow, a six-hour film by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson featuring the Indie rock band, The National, showing at Luhring Augustine Bushwick. The film documents a performance of the same duration, organized by Kjartansson for the purpose of filming, staged last year at PS1, in which the band played the same three-minute song continuously. We will see how many of the critics watch the film in its entirety!

Another of the shows selected in which time and endurance are determined by the “viewer” is Generator, by Marina Abramovic, at Sean Kelly Gallery, in which visitors must undergo sensory deprivation, and indicate to custodians when they have had enough.

And something of this taste for the long road must have gotten into editor David Cohen’s system as this week he reviews National Gallery, the latest documentary by Frederick Wiseman and his first devoted to a museum, currently showing at Film Forum. The film runs for three hours and a minute.

The other shows to be discussed November 21 are of Tommy Hartung at On Stellar Rays, and Ursula von Rydingsvard at Galerie Lelong. The podcast, meanwhile, of last month’s Tenth Anniversary panel with Ken Johnson, Marjorie Welish and Joan Waltemath, at which shows of Peter Fend, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer and John Walker were discussed, was recently posted. A separate review of Walker by John Goodrich offsets a lack of euphoria manifest on the panel for that particular artist. Some other recently posted reviews at artcritical include Stephen Maine on Judy Pfaff, Paul Carey-Kent on Karla Black, Amelia Rina on Christopher Williams and Jill Nathanson on Harriet Korman.

In the spirit of marathons, this sunny chill weekend will see print connoisseurs running around town for the culmination of Print Week in New York City, with the IFPDA’s 23rd Annual Print Fair at the Park Avenue Armory complemented by a slew of satellite events. The Print Fair is open until 8pm Saturday and 6pm Sunday.

The post The Marathon That Keeps On Running appeared first on artcritical.

As for the appointment, this is of our new Poetry Editor, Michael Heller, whose Desmoiselles d’Avignon-inspired collaboration with the Colorado artist duo alpert+kahn, Dda, has just been posted in our Poetry for Art series.  As a past luminary of that series, Anne Waldman (in collaboration with Pat Steir) has written, “Michael Heller is one of our best poets and thinkers who has carried Oppen’s dictum that poetry embodies ‘precise information on existence’ forward.”  Heller’s collected poems, This Constellation is a Name, which was published in 2012 by Nightboat Books, is as rich with connections to the world and thought of painters from Kitaj and Kossoff to Tiepolo and Mondrian and Beckmann as it is mystics and dandies from Baudelaire to Benjamin to Tibet.  He replaces our long serving first advisor in poet-artist collaborations Bill Berkson who does us the honor of joining our roster of contributing editors.

Meanwhile, associate editor Noah Dillon writes this week on Israeli-born painter of lobsters and sensualities Tomer Aluf in a review that is almost a Baudelairean portrait of an artist dandy.  Lindsay Comstock, continuing the sartorial theme, offers a very personal meditation of the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute exhibition, Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire.  Roman Kalinovski, in his first review for artcritical, looks at the monograph on Richard Phillips from Rizzoli.  Deven Golden writes on the painter William Conger whose abstraction shadowed the Imagists and helped define a Chicago style.  David Rhodes writes on Kate Shepherd and Ellie Bronson on Do Ho Suh’s drawings.  Apropos The Review Panel’s upcoming deliberations, Juliet Helmke visits a group show about drones and photography at Apex that includes the work of Peter Fend.

The post A Poet Among Painters appeared first on artcritical.

Last spring, a crowd of art critics gathered in TriBeCa to discuss the state of criticism. I was surprised at how many writers bashfully admit to shying away from bad reviews. Most of these people are much older than me and have been doing this sort of work professionally for a long time, but they have the same reticence that I think a lot of art critics do, despite our collective reputation as hatchet-wielding brutes. And, in fact, negative reviews do seem pretty rare, with many writers apparently preferring to champion the artists they like than censure those with which they feel at odds.

However, at The Review Panel, the kid gloves come off. Friday sees the first night in the tenth annual season of this popular forum, moderated by David Cohen, with Alexander Nagel, Dorothy Spears and Robert Storr. A large part of what makes these events so exciting is that panelists and audience members are encouraged to take a position, argue with one another, and, if they feel that way inclined, pan a show that doesn’t work for them. To be critical, in other words. That’s not to say the discussions lack levity, wit, mutual appreciation, or joy even. It was enormous fun last year to see the artist, critic, and curator Stephen Westfall, at his combative best with Cohen’s other guests, Roberta Smith and Ara Merjian. Or, in March, I was very excited to see artcritical’s then Associate Editor, my predecessor, Nora Griffin with Drew Lowenstein and Barry Schwabsky, none of them shrinking violets. I will find myself on the panel next spring, with Sharon Butler and John Yau.

I’m still very new to artcritical, but beginning to make my mark. Some readers may have seen the new Instagram account (@artcritical.editors) I set up. Writer Eric Sutphin recently posted some really cool stuff he’s seen during Berlin Art Week, and we’ve been posting some of the exhibitions we see around New York, as well as announcements about new and previous features and reviews. Please follow us there, on Twitter, or on Facebook for immediate notification of the latest posts at our site. And I’m encouraging writers to submit negative reviews, to take on assignments beyond their comfort zone, as this is the other face of Janus in the mission of the critic. With those, as with all that we publish, we encourage you to comment — we want to hear your voice and engage with you on the subject of art, a serious matter for us all. Come and tell us why we’re wrong or what we got right, or ask us the tough questions we know you have.

See, for instance, our recent reviews by Saul Ostrow, who wrestles with the career and turbulent psychic undertones of Jeff Koons’s work at his Whitney retrospective; Juliet Helmke’s excellent survey of the arts scene in Australia, now threatened with severe cuts to government funding; Collin Sundt’s beautiful architectural criticism of the form and function of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum; and artist, writer, and critic Peter Scott’s review of “13 Most Wanted Men: Andy Warhol and the 1964 World’s Fair” at the Queens Museum, which looks back at the politics and aesthetics of the Pop artist’s installation at the World’s Fair, 50 years ago. As well, we have a dispatch by David Carrier, writing from Manifesta 10 in St. Petersburg and David Carbone’s take on Stanley Lewis at Betty Cuningham. Plus, poet Adrian Dannatt has contributed a very tender essay on the paintings by Paul Pagk, on display in three concurrent shows in New York and Paris.

We look forward to seeing you this at Friday’s panel, or reading your comments at artcritical.com and our social media pages. Come join in the exchange of ideas. Quips and barbs welcome.

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