NY Times Art in Review: Nelson, Mitchell, Rauch

“Dona Nelson: In Situ, Paintings, 1973-Present,” Thomas Erben, New York, NY. Through May 31. Roberta Smith: “There are many ways a New York museum could avoid merely validating the art market; one would be to surprise us all and give the New York painter Dona Nelson a survey. She has painted prolifically and innovatively for nearly 40 years, following her own path through the gap between abstraction and representation. She has been sustained by an adventuresome emphasis on materials, an appreciation of outsider art and an athletic (or, more fashionably, ‘performative’) approach to process that builds on the art of Jackson Pollock and the Minimalist notion of specificity. For Ms. Nelson, however, specificity evolved into a charged compression of feeling, surface fact and optical experience.””Joan Mitchell: Paintings and Pastels, 1973-1983,” Lennon, Weinberg, New York, NY. Through June 21. Karen Rosenberg: “Joan Mitchell�s pastels, the subject of this small exhibition, rival her better-known oil paintings in bravura and complexity. Working during the late 1970s and early �80s at her studio in V�theuil, France, she put an Abstract Expressionist spin on a medium more often associated with the French Impressionists.”
“Neo Rauch,” David Zwirner, New York, NY. Through June 21. Karen Rosenberg: “What comes after a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum? For the Leipzig-trained painter Neo Rauch, room to breathe. At the Met, Mr. Rauch�s paintings looked static and hemmed in by history; references to old masters are still present in this show at Zwirner, but the new work is more of a Fellini film than a costume drama.”Read all the reviews here.