Contributed by Emma Stolarski / At the Guggenheim, Hilma af Klint�s paintings present themselves one by one, up the spiral ramp, just as she had dreamt in her sketches over 100 years ago. Her visionary drawing, Paintings for the Temple, was created during a session with her spiritual guides. She led […]
Museum Exhibitions
Pregame Painting Report: 2019 Whitney Biennial
The 2019 edition of the Whitney Biennial,�on view�May 17 through September 22, was curated by Whitney Museum�Associate Curator Jane Panetta and Assistant Curator Rujeko Hockley. Each�has experience curating painting into group exhibitions, which means we should see some relevant, maybe thought-provoking,�work on canvas (or related material).�Hockley came to the Whitney […]
Warhol at the Whitney: A provocateur for all seasons
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / There are certainly strong generational reasons for the Whitney to mount �Andy Warhol � From A to B and Back Again,� its penetrating current retrospective. It goes almost without saying that Warhol changed art history by melding the commercial and the �fine,� and, in his energized […]
Made in LA: The personal is political
Contributed by Mary Addison Hackett / There may be a few artists working today who support the current administration in Washington, but it�s safe to say that most count themselves as members of the Resistance, such as it is. This doesn�t mean that we�re destined to make reflexive, shrill propaganda. For […]
Angel Otero: Painting and the social landscape
Contributed by Eileen Jeng Lynch / Angel Otero�s paintings revealed new palettes and breadth in his recent exhibition at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. In “Angel Otero: Elegies,” six monumental hanging pieces and three works on paper were installed alongside three of Robert Motherwell�s lithographs and drawings, including Motherwell’s �Elegy�studies […]
Softly singing �Songs for Sabotage”
Contributed by Sharon Butler / �Songs for Sabotage,� the 2018 iteration of the New Museum Triennial, curated by Gary Carrion-Murayari and Francesca Altamura of the New Museum, and Alex Gartenfeld of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami, features elegantly installed, dimly-lit work by an international group of artists. Many of them have interdisciplinary practices […]
Marsden Hartley’s influences and ambition
Contributed by Sharon Butler / In the New York art community of the early 1900s, Marsden Hartley (born Lewiston, Maine 1877; died 1943 Ellsworth, Maine) found success elusive, and discovered, as almost all artists do, that developing a unique voice was a challenging proposition. He worked in New York, spent several […]
Agnes Martin: A resolutely solitary endeavor
Running late, I arrived at the press preview for the Agnes Martin retrospective long after all of the other critics and journalists had left. My inefficiency turned out to be a bonus. I had the place to myself, and walking alone up the Guggenheim spiral and following the unwinding of […]
Eric Aho shadows his father at the New Britain Museum
The energetic paint handling in Eric Aho�s work is like a shot of adrenaline for contemporary painters. In a solo exhibition at the New Britain Museum of American Art, Aho presents a selection of paintings (many of which were shown at DC Moore last year) that fuse portraiture and landscape, […]
Burri: On fire at the Guggenheim
Contributed by Sharon Butler / A naively enthusiastic member of Mussolini’s National Fascist Party as a young doctor, Alberto Burri (1915?1995) served as a medic in World War II, ending up in a POW camp in Texas, where he began drawing and painting. He returned to Italy after the war […]