Contributed by Talia Shiroma / The drawings in Trisha Donnelly’s show at the Drawing Center are a succession of curving volumes with meticulous shading, depicting what are most aptly called not objects but “things.” They suggest sinew and bone, heavy metal aesthetics, and the errant, automatic doodling found on classroom desks or tucked away in notebooks. Neither representational nor abstract, some recall Jay DeFeo’s works from the seventies in their effects of translucency and particularized strangeness. Yet unlike DeFeo’s apparitional tripods and dental bridge, the things which Donnelly depicts rarely seem to coincide with physical reality, to mystifying and sometimes numinous effect.
Tag: Adrian Piper
Summer rant: The wrong show
Dedicated to Dr. Ruth (1928–2024)
Contributed by Laurie Fendrich / I used my fattest Sharpie to excise the summer group show “Self-Pleasure” at Thomas Erben Gallery – a gallery I have long admired – from my list of what to see. Although the mere idea seems to have sprung straight from the The Onion, holding forth about an exhibition I’ve not seen, as I’m doing here, will strike some as inappropriate or even unethical. Several years ago, in fact, a prominent New York art magazine editor was duly criticized for reviewing a show he hadn’t seen. But I am not writing a review or describing the art in the show, which may or may not be good. I’m commenting on the show’s jejune premise.


















