Contributed by Sharon Butler / In a lively group show of large canvases at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, curator Jason Stopa makes a strong case that contemporary painters, particularly those working figuratively, are cultivating a new form of Expressionism. He cites popular culture (cartoons, fashion photography, YouTube videos), personal narrative, […]
Group Shows
History: Artist-run galleries in NYC in the 1950s and 1960s
Contributed by Sharon Butler / At artist-run galleries, the conversation centers on art rather than commerce. Alternative spaces provide a place for unknown and under-recognized artists to mount exhibitions, for curators to organize their first thematic shows, and for established artists to present experimental projects that their commercial galleries aren’t interested in showing. “Inventing Downtown,” an ambitious […]
Examining queer @ Yale University
Contributed by Rachel Farber / What is a queer perspective? How does queerness meet form? Students at the Yale School of Art, Loren Britton and Res, began asking these questions after seeing the student-run exhibition ” Video Mixer,” curated by Allyn Hughes & Jody Joyner, in 2015. Their conversation precipitated […]
Installation view: Machines of Paint and Other Materials
When artist Jennifer Riley saw a cavernous vacant storefront on Front Street in DUMBO, she thought it would make a good exhibition space, so she contacted the building’s owner (Two Trees Management) and asked if they would be interested in hosting a pop-up show. They agreed, and the result is […]
Installation view: Drishti, a concentrated gaze
Gallerist Elizabeth Heskin and artist Patricia Spergel, in collaboration with the NURTUREart Registry of Artists and Curators, have assembled a lively exhibition of contemporary abstraction at the 1285 Ave of the Americas Art Gallery. Aptly titled “Drishti: A Concentrated Gaze” after the yoga practice that brings awareness inward through […]
Blurring the boundary between painting and photography
For the exhibition “Chemistry: Explorations in Abstract Photography,” curator Karlyn Benson, director of Matteawan Gallery in Beacon, NY, has selected six photographers who push beyond traditional photographic processes in search of new definitions of what a photograph can be. In this exhibition, on display at Garrison Art Center May 21 […]
What’s so strange at Fredericks & Freiser’s “Strange Abstraction”?
At this stage, abstraction is no longer considered confusing or iconoclastic. So what kind of abstract work might earn the title “strange?” Fredericks & Freiser’s buoyant group show “Strange Abstraction” provides a sharp answer. Each of the artists employs his or her materials in an uncompromisingly idiosyncratic way. Like many […]
Sense and sensibility at Lennon, Weinberg
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Though skewed towards this century, the paintings in Lennon Weinberg�s elegantly expansive group show �A Few Days,� from all twenty of the painters the gallery has represented since it opened in 1988, range from 1957 to 2014. In terms of style and school, they are […]
VERNACULAR: A painterly conversation about abstraction
By Janet Goleas / Shared from the Hamptons Art Hub / The four artists included in “Vernacular”�Eric Brown, Sharon Butler, Andrew Seto and Joyce Robins�at Bushwick�s Theodore:Art, approach abstraction with a shared sense of humility, materiality and ambiguity. Speaking in distinct but related painterly tongues, the works on view connect […]
The Painter of Modern Life, command-z, and the resurgence of abstraction
The Internet, especially through social media, facilitates a direct and immediate connection between interior and exterior worlds, and I have little doubt that this recent phenomenon has helped propel the current resurgence of abstract painting. MoMA�s Laura Hoptman-curated contemporary painting survey �The Forever Now� showcases artists who comb the Internet […]