In the Wall Street Journal, Lance Esplund reports that Carl Plansky’s paintings of flower bouquets — some nearly seven feet tall — threaten to leap from the canvas and strangle the viewer like full-frontal assaults. “Looking at his exhibition of a dozen paintings of bouquets, a hard maple tree and […]
Tag: Lance Esplund
Growing season at UBS Art Gallery
The UBS Art Gallery’s exhibition, “Implant,” features work ranging from botanically accurate sculptures and paintings, to abstract gestures inspired by flora, to conceptual works suggesting artist/plant collaborations. Curator Jodie Vicenta Jacobson of The Horticultural Society was inspired by Michael Pollan�s book, The Botany of Desire, and the notion that plants […]
Studio pin-ups from Germany
The little pictures and postcards that artists hang on our studio walls create a visual guide to our artistic DNA. Over in the corner, or above our desks, images (often paint-smeared) are haphazardly taped to the wall as both reference for visitors and technical reminders to ourselves. I was chatting […]
Philip Guston’s stories
The Morgan Library & Museum presents the first major survey of Guston’s drawings in 20 years. Organized by the KunstMuseum Bonn, and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Munich, in cooperation with the artist�s estate, the show examines the importance of drawing throughout key periods of Guston�s career, from the mid-1940s to […]
On Jasper Johns at the Met
At artnet, Donald Kuspit suggests that Johns is a good avant-garde conformist, and that his gray is evocative of the “man in the gray flannel suit.” “Modernism was no longer a terra incognita of art when Johns entered its ranks, but an established phenomenon, if still a little risqu�, at […]
Fetching Freud’s etchings
“Lucian Freud: The Painter�s Etchings,” curated by Starr Figura. Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Dec. 16 through Mar. 10. The press release says the exhibition presents the full scope of Freud’s achievements in etching, including seventy-five examples ranging from rare, early experiments in the 1940s to the large […]
Seurat’s light and shadow
“Georges Seurat: The Drawings,” curated by Jodi Hauptman. Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Through Jan. 7. This exhibition, the first NYC show of Seurat’s work in fifteen years, includes cont� drawings along with a few oil sketches and paintings. Surveying the artist’s entire career, from his academic training […]
Kara Walker’s racy cutouts arrive at the Whitney
“Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love,” organized by Philippe Vergne and Yasmil Raymond, both from the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. Whitney Museum of American Art, , New York, NY. Through Feb. 3. UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA March 2 to June 8, 2008. �It�s […]
Rembrandt and pals stir unlikely controversy in Gotham
�The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,� organized by Walter Liedtke, Curator in the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of European Paintings. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Through Jan. 6, 2008. In a wacky installation that reminds me of the time my ex-husband rearranged my […]
Learning to love abstraction (with footnotes)
�The Abstract Impulse: Fifty Years of Abstraction at the National Academy, 1956-2006,� at the National Academy Museum, New York, NY. Through February 2008. Benjamin Genocchio reports in the NYTimes: “The fabled conservatism of the National Academy, longtime home of the retrograde and anachronistic in art, has faded over the years […]
