Contributed by Sharon Butler / When I stopped by the Florence Griswold Museum during a snowstorm in mid-March to see Peter Halley‘s retrospective, the glowing neon color and interlocking geometric forms — what he has called cells, prisons (that is, rectangular sets of prison bars), and conduits — had transformed […]
Museum Exhibitions
The strategic now
In her statement for “The Forever Now,” the contemporary painting show on view at MOMA through April 5, 2015, curator Laura Hoptman makes a case that the Internet enables painters to sample styles from art history, creating an �ahistorical free-for-all� in which artists are �reanimating historical styles or recreating a […]
These threads are queer
Guest Contributor Clarity Haynes / The wall text at the portal to the exhibition “Queer Threads,” currently at the Leslie-Lohman Museum in Manhattan, bluntly states, �Is this work �gay?� You bet.� The show, with its confluence of queer and feminist sensibilities, is the perfect subversive, fuzzy, neon, rainbow, glittery storm. Transgression has never felt so friendly.
2014 Whitney Biennial: Curators’ statements, painting links
I’m looking forward to the opening of the Whitney Biennial this week because the selection includes a surprising number of painters, including a special nod from Michelle Grabner toward contemporary abstract painting by women. Perhaps reflecting the wide range of approaches artists engage today, the Whitney rejected a […]
Art History lesson: The Pre-Raphaelites, courtesy of Roberta Smith
“Pre-Raphaelite art is a volatile, highly complicated mixture of questionable intentions, literary erudition, ironclad nostalgia, meticulous realism, lavish costumes and a prescient technicolor palette. The brotherhood was formed in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, three disgruntled students at the Royal Academy of Art. […]
Painting? Painting?
At the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, curators Eric Crosby and Bartholomew Ryan have organized “Painter Painter,” an exhibition comprising work by fifteen artists, some of whom are working with painting materials in ways that are often labeled “painting” but may be more firmly rooted in Minimalism and Process Art […]
Medium unspecificity prevails
For artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Claude Viallat, Elizabeth Murray, Blinky Palermo, Rochelle Feinstein, and Michael Venezia, painting has arguably been about the object more than about the image, and in the past decade or so, a slew of artists working with found materials, furniture, lumber, and more have adopted a […]
Symbolist landscapes in Scotland, including Munch, Gauguin and Ensor
At one point in my painting life, I was drawn obsessively to Symbolist landscape painting, and I’m still rather fond of it. This summer, the National Galleries of Scotland has mounted a show in collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum and the Ateneum Art Museum Finnish National Gallery to organize […]
Happy Birthday, Alex Katz
Contributed by Sharon Butler / I learned via artnet’s Twitter feed that today is Alex Katz birthday, so to celebrate, here are some images from “Alex Katz: Maine/New York,” an exhibition at the Colby Museum of Art that runs through December 30. Curated by Carter Ratcliff, and including work from […]
Sly and witty: Female Surrealists in Los Angeles
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Past surveys of Surrealism have either largely excluded female artists or minimized their contributions, so the exhibition of lady Surrealists at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that runs through May 6, 2012, is a big deal.