In the NY Times Ken Johnson declares that “Glossolalia: Languages of Drawing� is the most exciting exhibition of drawings the Museum of Modern Art has produced in years. “Organized by Connie Butler, the museum�s chief curator of drawings, it presents a delightfully unpredictable mix of about 100 works by two […]
Tag: Museum of Modern Art
America’s Lessness
My contribution to the April issue of The Brooklyn Rail considers the notion of readymade color, the implications of the current Whitney Biennial, and the fleeting nature of symbolic and political meaning. “At the Museum of Modern Art, the current exhibition ‘Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today’ examines two […]
“All power to the hardboiled intellect”
Peter Schjeldahl writes about the Color Chart show at MoMA: “Predominant are attitudes of ironic detachment that derive from Marcel Duchamp, whose rebuslike canvas of 1918, �Tu m�,� with its represented commercial color samples, begins the show. Is it outlandish�a reductio ad absurdum of the Duchampian, even�to regard color, the […]
MoMA’s sexism resurfaces (again)
At her well-tended art blog, Joanne Mattera’s specialty is geometric abstraction, so naturally she stopped by to see “Color Chart” at MoMA this week. Joanne disgustedly reports that the exhibition presents a powerful Y chromosome. “Of the 44 artists in the show, 38 are men and six are women. This […]
Readymade color at MoMA
The Museum of Modern Art’s “Color Chart”explores what happens when contemporary artists assign color decisions to chance, readymade source, or arbitrary system. Midway through the twentieth century, long-held convictions regarding the spiritual truth or scientific validity of particular colors gave way to an excitement about color as a mass-produced and […]
NYTimes Art in Review: Loren MacIver
I spent the day yesterday in the MoMA archives researching a story about Loren MacIver for the March issue of The Brooklyn Rail, so I’m pleased to see that Holland Cotter reviews MacIver’s current show at the Alexandre Gallery today. MacIver, a self-taught painter who lived in NYC with poet […]
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 […]
Hard edge in Grand Rapids
Minimalist painter Ellsworth Kelly has redefined abstraction by examining the shapes and colors found in natural and man-made forms, producing a visually breathtaking and philosophically sophisticated body of work. Of course, not everyone sees it that way. At the soon-to-open Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan, �Blue White,� an Ellsworth […]
The critics respond: What is painting?
‘What Is Painting?” curated by Anne Umland. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Through September 17 In New York Magazine Jerry Saltz writes his own narrative for the exhibition: “The revisionism of this show works partly because it is so seamless. Except for one or two cases�a generically […]
