“David Reed,” Max Protetch, New York, NY. Through Dec. 22.
This is Reed’s fifteenth solo show with Max Protetch. In the Brooklyn Rail, John Yau defends Reed against critics’ who derogatorily label Reed an old-fashioned Color Field painter. “There are a number of reasons that I can think of as to why Smith, Saltz, and others have problems with Reed�s paintings. They don�t look like anyone else�s paintings; they aren�t surrogates, citations or parodies, which, at some basic level, suggest that they possess the quality of originality. And since originality is dead, this aspect cannot even be acknowledged, much less discussed. Serious painters who believe in painting, however problematic, have all the status of a leper in today�s art world, and those who believe that they are the ‘healthy’ ones are often quite smug about their position.” Read more.