Award-winning blogazine, primarily about painting
Friday, June 2, 2023
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Despite our deep dive several years ago into Provisional painting and the Casualist tendency, a battery of questions continues to confront painters in the studio: can a painting be meaningful if the process involves fun rather than struggle? Is hard-earned resolution required? Or can something painted quickly and easily […]
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 […]
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / It might be tempting to conclude that David Humphrey is too facile a painter for his own damn good � that his command of brush, surface, and pigment across a spectrum from representational to abstract is so assured, his vision so pristinely and confidently realized on the […]
Contributed by Sharon Butler / I met Robert Yoder at a fair in Miami a few years back, and, since we have a similar aesthetic, he invited me to show some work at SEASON, the gallery he runs out of his beautiful mid-century modern home in Seattle. This month Yoder has a solo at frosch & […]
Contributed by Sangram Majumdar / Last weekend Magalie Gu�rin and I met up at her current exhibition, SOLUTE at Chapter NY, to talk shop. We discussed the choices painters make, how paintings are sometimes like people, how colors from the past return unexpectedly, whether marks can be categorized as nouns or verbs, and the […]
Contributed by Barbara Kerstetter /�Vincent Desiderio is a powerful, unique voice in the contemporary art world. His�paintings have commanded an international following for more than two decades. Born in Philadelphia in 1955, Desiderio�graduated from Haverford College, where he studied painting and art history. Today he�is�a senior critic at the New […]
February is a short month, which makes visiting�all the shows that much harder, but before the onslaught of NYC art fairs��in March (the�6th through 10th),�try to visit some galleries, either IRL or online. After all, we�can�t spend every minute�obsessing over Adam Schiff�s investigations, the�House�Committee��hearings, SC Mueller and the Russia probe, […]
Contributed by Sharon Butler / The new year brings good news for Bushwick gallery goers: The L Train, which was scheduled for a 15-month shutdown to undergo repairs beginning this year, is NOT shutting down. This is a welcome decision for the artists and galleries that live and work along the path of […]
Contributed by Laurie Fendrich / Anyone walking out of the Vija Celmins retrospective that opened last week at SFMoMA thinking how good she is at copying things might just as well have stayed at Starbucks and googled her name on Wikipedia, where this dumber-than-dumb entry awaits: Vija Celmins is an […]
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Well, hello there December. I just completed a hectic (but energizing) semester teaching three courses–New York Academy of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and Parsons at the New School–and I’m eager to head out and see some exhibitions before the holidays. Tra la la. Don�t forget […]
Latest post, link in profile / Peter Halley: On the cusp / Contributed by Sharon Butler / Peter Halley’s catalogue raisonné needs to be updated. This month, a group of his paintings from 1980 and 1981 are on display in a surprising and revelatory two-gallery collaboration between Craig Starr on the Upper East Side and Karma in the East Village. Most of the paintings have rarely been shown, a few never, and I was delighted to see them, however belatedly. Link in profile
Image: Little Spanish Prison, 1981. Acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on canvas, 30 x 40 inches. On view at Craig Starr Gallery.
@sharon_butler @peterhalley @craigstarrgallery @karmakarma9 #peterhalleystudio #craigstarrgallery #karmagallerynyc
Latest post, link in profile / Donna Dennis’ extraordinary invitation / Contributed by Iris Cushing / Donna Dennis is an artist of transition and transformation. Her architectural installations – which she pioneered in the 1960s and has continued to develop – often take the shape of transitory sites: subway stations, hotels, tourist cabins, and, in the case of her show “Ship/Dock/Three Houses and a Night Sky” at Private Public Gallery in Hudson, a loading dock. Like much of Dennis’ work, this installation draws on her experience and observation of vernacular spaces. Link in profile
@donnadennisstudio @Irismarble @privatepublicgalleryhudson #vernacularspaces #hudsongallery
Joshua Nierodzinski / HOW IT STARTED, HOW IT’S GOING / On view at @contextspacebk through June 11 / Artist talk and brunch on Sat, June 3, 11am -1 pm
"Context is pleased to announce the opening of HOW IT STARTED, HOW IT’S GOING, the first solo exhibition in New York City by artist Joshua Nierodzinski. Curated as a retrospective, the presentation spans a decade exploring the forensic imagination through drawings on microscopic slides, videos, and multi-layered photosensitive painting. It is accompanied by a publication with essays by the artist and Sam O’Hana, a performance and research-led practitioner in critical and lyrical writing."
Joshua Nierodzinski (b.1982) is an artist who merges painting and forensic photography to address personal and national histories. He is a co-founder of HEKLER, a transnational artist-run platform that fosters the critical and experimental examination of hospitality and conflict. Selected awards include the National Endowment for the Arts Grant, an artist-in-residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation, and the Wassaic Artist Residency. Joshua is a recent AIM Bronx Museum Fellow and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Context Art Space
948 Third Ave., 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY
Wednesday – Saturday 11am – 6pm
@jnierodzinski @contextspacebk #samohana #wassaicproject #samandadelegoldenfoundation #contemporarypainting #bronxmuseumaimfellowship #josefanniealbers #twocoatssponsor
I saw Alicia Feng’s haunting and beautiful graphite drawings at Sunnyside Arts the other day when I popped in to buy a tube of paint. Director Ed Kim tells me that she pens well known graphic novels under a different name.
@sunnysideartsnyc #artsupplies #artstore #drawings #graphite
Latest post, link in profile / Chakaia Booker’s lyrical muscle / Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Making deeper sense of some abstract art past its initial visual impact can require extended consideration. Not so much Chakaia Booker’s sculpture, now on view in her solo show “Public Opinion” at David Nolan Gallery. Composed predominantly of exactingly configured pieces of black rubber tires along with wood and metal, the work immediately grips you like a confident advocate, calm and insistent. Link in profile
@chakaiabooker @davidnolangallery #jonathanstevenson #twocoatsofpaint
Jim Condron has put together a lovable show of crazy sculptures he made using things sourced from other artists and writers. One piece includes a pair of pink crocs — Grace Hartigan’s last painting shoes — and I was reminded of a Rachel Harrison piece I saw this winter @glenstonemuseum . Kind of heartbreaking that Hartigan’s shoes don’t have more paint on them. Swipe for images
Jim Condron: Collected Things
Sculptures from the Collected Items of Artists, Writers and Thinkers
On view through June 17 @artcake_nyc (but closed for Memorial Day Weekend)
Image info:
Grace Hartigan’s Things, 2023
Crocs shoes, paint stick, pillow, steel
antique chair, steel
35 x 45 x35 inches
In the Glenstone collection:
Rachel Harrison, Sculpture with Boots, 2017
wood, polystyrene, chicken wire, cardboard, burlap, cement, acrylic, steel, and pigmented inkjet print
93 x 60 x 46 inches (236 x 152 x 116 cm)
© Rachel Harrison
Rachel Harrison, Sculpture with Boots (detail)
@jimcondron #gracehartigan #leekrasner @pollockkrasnerfoundation #rachelharrison #paintersshoes
(I gave Jim a few coffee pots from my favorite hometown thrift shop —the only store I’ve ever loved. Go see what he did with them ☕️)
On the UES yesterday I stopped in to see Andrea Marie Breiling’s solo
“Swallowtail” at @alminerech. In the press release the artist says that the paintings are like the swallowtail butterflies in that the closer you get to the work, the more the surface begins to reveal its details, but honestly the details don’t really seem important, overwhelmed as they are by the brash color, the mesmerizing circular action of the mark making, and the mural-sized scale. Natural wonder doesn’t stand a chance next to Breiling’s industrial strength vision, but maybe that’s the point. Love the illusion of depth and the sense of light. On view through June 10.
@alminerech @andrea_marie_breiling #futurism #contemporarypainting #LAPainting #LAArtist
Latest post, link in profile / Ethel Schwabacher: Canon-adjacent? / Contributed by David Carrier / Revisionist arguments about who should be counted among the artistic elite, whether they be old masters or modernists, provide essential stimulus in the art world. They proceed in an established manner. Some reasonably influential figure contends that a significant artist has been unjustly excluded from a particular art canon. Commentaries are published and shows organized making the case for supplementing it. The recent amendments to the predominantly white male Abstract Expressionist elite have proven especially tricky, as issues of gender and race enter the picture. Does Alma Thomas belong? Norman Lewis? What about Ethel Schwabacher? With “Woman in Nature (Paintings from the 1950s)”, Berry and Campbell argue energetically, though not entirely convincingly, that she deserves a place. Link in profile
#davidcarrier #ethelschwabacher @berrycampbell #womenpainters #1950spainting #abstractexpressionism @carrier3909 #twocoatsofpaint
Spread across two floors at Magenta Plains, Jennifer Bolande’s solo, “Persistence of Vision” is as compelling as it is enigmatic. Downstairs, Bolande captures images of fragmented scenes and objects (perhaps from dusty road trips in an old muscle car?), a series of moments that manifest deeper meaning. The work upstairs focuses on the handmade. Rachel Kushner, are you out there? Through June 17.
@magentaplains #jenniferbolande #rachelkushner #lesgalleries #magentaplains #persistenceofvision #contemporaryphotography #plastersculpture
