On Sunday, “Prison,” Peter Halley’s first exhibition in the Northwest, opens at Disjecta, a non-profit space in Portland. The site-specific installation is a digitally generated […]
Author: Two Coats Staff
Sneaky funny in Ridgewood
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Artists Jonathan Terranova and Matthew Mahler opened Small Black Door in late 2010 to mount some interesting shows by emerging […]
Merlin James: Secret world
Contributed by Sharon Butler / In his current show at Sikkema Jenkins, Merlin James presents handcrafted relief-like objects that look like the backs of […]
Sharon Butler, Joy Curtis, Cathy Nan Quinlan at STOREFRONT
Sharon Butler, “Brightly Colored Separates 6,” (detail) 2010, oil on canvas, 30″ x 40″ This month my paintings will be in “On Display,” an exhibition […]
Amy Sillman: The O-G Volume 3
While visiting Amy Sillman’s exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins this month, readers can pick up the latest volume of The O-G for a buck. Folded inside the low-budget artist booklet is a small poster, “Some Problems in Philosophy,” sort of a crib sheet to understanding the famous philosophers and their theories, from Descartes through Derrida. In hand-drawn chart form, the poster (originally made as a drawing for the show) lists the “great” and “not so great” about each. In a postscript at the bottom Sillman advises readers not to worry about Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, Elizabeth Grosz, and other women philosophers. “Women – who cares what they think?? Don’t even bother–probably minor stuff–[!]” In this terrific exhibition, Sillman drolly explores the battle between conceptual art and painting, latching onto the image of a lightbulb as both muse and model.
Butler gets a Jackson Pollock valued at 2 million
Jackson Pollock, “Silver and Black,” 1950, oil and metallic paint, 21.25 x 15.75.” The Business Journal Daily reports that a painting by Jackson Pollock, valued […]
Rackstraw Downes and Mark Bradford win MacArthur Genius Grants
There are three criteria for selection of MacArthur Fellows: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.
Studio update: January Residency at Pocket Utopia
Contributed by Sharon Butler / I spent the week-long residency creating circle charts, which represent the point in my work where words and images intersect. […]
Laurie Fendrich: Why do painters have to justify being painters?
Fendrich recently returned to New York from a stint as a Visiting Artist at Painting’s Edge, a summer painting workshop in Idyllwild, CA. She reflects […]
Pattern and Decoration revisted in Yonkers
Pattern and Decoration: An Ideal Vision in American Art, 1975-1985, curated by Anne Swartz. Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY. Through Jan. 20. The HRM presents […]
Anselm Keifer thinks big
Alan Riding looks at the artist chosen for the innaugural solo show at the Grand Palais in Paris. “Since moving to France in 1993, this […]
Frida Kahlo centennial exhibition to premiere at Walker Art Center
Curated by Kahlo biographer and art historian Hayden Herrera and Walker associate curator Elizabeth Carpenter, the presentation will include approximately 50 paintings from the beginning […]
The “touchingly strange” paintings of Georges Rouault
Michael Kimmelman reviews the Rouault exhibition in today’s NYTimes. “At one time Rouaults reputation rivaled Matisses, and his clowns and prostitutes were as ubiquitously reproduced […]















