“WILLIAM POWHIDA: The Writing Is on the Wall,” Schroeder-Romero, New York, NY. Through May 16 Holland Cotter: William Powhida, art world vigilante, virtuoso draftsman, compulsive calligrapher, fantasist autobiographer and recently self-announced gallery owner and art dealer, has a semi-solo show at Schroeder-Romero well worth catching. As in the past, Mr. Powhida, who lives and works in Brooklyn, provides an updated rogues� gallery of New York art world celebrities in a salon-style display of dozens of deft graphite portraits based on Internet photos of openings, parties, galas, etc. Wall of fame? Wall of shame? He refrains from comment. But art speaks for itself, or so we�ve been told, and you can make of these tawdry-looking types what you will. Check out the James Kalm video of the opening here.
“ALEX KATZ,”PaceWildenstein, New York, NY. Through June 13. Karen Rosenberg: It�s tempting to see the end-of-day theme as an end-of-life metaphor. But that would be too pat for Mr. Katz, who has been painting the Maine landscape (at various times of day) for more than a half-century. You sense that his fixation in his latest works isn�t the fading light per se, but a lifetime of making art squeezed into those 15 minutes at sunset.
“MARILYN MINTER: Green Pink Caviar,” Salon 94 Freemans, New York, NY. Through June 13. Ken Johnson: In its hedonistic excess, Ms. Minter�s work implies a Barbara Krugeresque critique of decadence in contemporary art, fashion and consumer culture. An 8-by-5-foot photograph called �Chewing Pink� shows from below a model with heavily shadowed eyes hungrily lapping up granulated pink candy, punning on powdered drugs like cocaine and heroin. Ms. Minter�s works are as much about addiction as about pleasure. The paintings of beautiful women blowing shimmering pink bubblegum bubbles? They�re not about oral sex � they�re about the economy.
Read the entire “Art in Review” column here.
Related posts:
Marilyn Minter: It’s about maintaining the integrity of the ideas
Alex Katz’s “delicate craquelure”
Tom Hebert’s Art Dealer Series
