Willard Boepple continues through July 31 at Salander-O’Reilly Galleries (20 E 79th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues, 212-879-6606) “Abstract sculpture has the wonderful potential of catching people coming around a corner and making them say, ‘what the hell is that?’” So says Willard Boepple (pronounced BUP-lee), whose point is proven at Salander-O’Reilly Galleries where … Continued

Bettina Blohm’s paintings are Haiku-like visual landscapes that distill emotion into abstract form. They reflect a love of Eastern art with its focus on intuitive states of mind. Blohm’s paintings also engage with a Matisse inspired sense of color and an Abstract Expressionist scale, both of which come across especially within her compositional placement of … Continued

The Dalí centenary and an American acolyte

“Time is a state: the flame in which there lives the salamander of the human soul.” -Andrei Tarkovsky Chicago-based artist Audrey Niffenegger has always had a strong sense of storytelling: A compelling grasp of contradiction, humor, tragedy, and fantasy permeates the twenty odd years of her visual art career. Her work, an affirmation of Chicago’s … Continued

Can video become the new painting? Not just in the art scene, where video takes an ever larger slice of the exhibition pie, but in the aesthetic sense as well. “Autumn Almanac,” a recent show by Jeremy Blake at Feigen in Chelsea has me wondering.

“His sculptures are matrices, in which a mysterious emptiness is embedded” While returning home to Manhattan via Amtrak after my interview with Jon Isherwood I realized that the experience of living with his sculptures for a few hours had transformed my way of seeing natural rock formations. The rocks that occasionally appeared to the sides … Continued

MR: There is of course always idle speculation on the state of painting as it might relate to the cultural vacuum. One cannot dismiss the fact that painting provides an entertainment for the masses, as do all the other mutant forms of so-called fine art. But its popularity at any given moment is certainly irrelevant. Would … Continued

Emotional intent is often ascribed to a sensitively rendered line, but to what extent can we say other information – intellect, curiosity, politics – are being transmitted in that same line? Put another way, how much of the spectrum can touch occupy in imparting content to a work of art? The question comes to mind thinking about “Global Networks”, the Independent Curators International exhibition of Mark Lombardi’s work at The Drawing Center in Soho, where twenty-five major drawings by the late artist are currently on display.

Ellen Berkenblit has been one of my favorite artists for years. I visited her studio once in the mid-nineties, and have done my best to see her shows whenever possible. A painter of expressionist, hermetic narratives, Berkenblit’s work can be simultaneously colorful, dark, moody, and humorous. With her recurring cast of characters – that include … Continued

I’m Saul Ostrow’s first official guest in his new apartment, and he’s happy to be cooking for someone other than himself. Saul has just transplanted from New York to become Dean of Fine Arts and Chair of Painting for the Cleveland Institute of Arts. His wife, the painter Shirley Kaneda, helped him move in, having … Continued