(An Appropriate Distance)


FROM THE MAYOR'S DOORSTEP

By Piri Halasz

Tags

Report from the Front

A newsletter of art criticism, art comment & occasional political comment. Estab. 1996. Published in hard copy 5-7 times a year. (For new shows, see "events;" for hard-copy rates, see "works.")

IN THE MEANTIME, A MASTER COLORIST

May 18, 2012

Tags: Gottlieb

Installation view of "Adolph Gottlieb: Gravity, Suspension, Motion: Paintings 1954 - 1972." (c) Estate of Adolph and Esther Gottlieb/licensed by VAGA, New York NY. Photo by Kerry Ryan McFate/Courtesy The Pace Gallery. Left to right: "One, Two, Three," 1964. Oil on canvas, 11' x 6'6". "Foursquare," (1964). Oil on canvas, 6'6" x 11'.
Even in the present trough, we still have some representatives of the peaks to enjoy. High among them is one of the giants of abstract expressionism, as seen at Pace in “Adolph Gottlieb: Gravity, Suspension, Motion: Paintings 1954-1972" (closed April 28). Gottlieb (1903-1974) has always presented problems for those who like their art easily pigeonholed. In the days when so many of the young abstract (more…)

GRINCH-TIME #3: PEAKS & TROUGHS

May 12, 2012

Tags: Forrest Bess, Nicole Eisenman, Vincent Fecteau, Jutta Koether, Andrew Masullo

Andrew Masullo (b. 1957). 5030, 2008-10. Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 in. (61 x 76.2 cm). Collection of the artist. (c) Andrew Masullo; courtesy Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles.
My third & last big overrated show is the “2012 Whitney Biennial,” organized by Elisabeth Sussman and Jay Sanders and exhibiting work by 51 artists (through May 27). Whatever else I may say about it, it has prompted me to a few fresh thoughts about art history, the notion of "peaks & troughs". These Biennials often attract negative reviews, but this year, (more…)

Grinch-time #2

May 10, 2012

Tags: Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). La Promenade, 1875-76. Oil on canvas, 67 x 42 5/8 inches. The Frick Collection, New York. Photo: Michael Bodycomb
Here is my second candidate for an overrated show. Which is not to say that a lot of it wasn't very fine. Just not all of it, and specifically not the part that everybody else elected to rave about.

The show I am talking about is “Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting,” at The Frick Collection (more…)

GRINCH-TIME #1

May 8, 2012

Tags: John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain, Whirled Peas, 1991. Painted, chromium-plated, and stainless steel. 139 1/2 x 75 x 48 1/2 inches. Private Collection. Installation view: "John Chamberlain: Choices," Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, February 24 - May 13, 2012. (c) 2011 John Chamberlain/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: David Heald (c) Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
For the past 8 or 9 entries, I've been all sweetness & light. Now it's time for some negativity. No other website is going to set up a link to this review, but in my twisted way, I feel it's important to survey the whole scene or at least a representative cross-section of it, and in this & my next 2 entries I shall be reviewing 3 museum shows that I feel have been OVERRATED. So go ahead, call me the Grinch that stole Christmas.

First on my list is “John Chamberlain: Choices,” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, organized by Susan Davidson, and including approximately 100 works, predominantly sculpture made from (more…)

NEW FROM BARNES & NOBLE

May 8, 2012

Tags: Piri Halasz

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FOUR STRONG WOMEN

April 15, 2012

Tags: Lauren Olitski, Susan Roth, Ann Walsh, Janice Van Horne

"Color & Edge" at Sideshow Gallery. Left to right: Roth, Walsh, Olitski. Courtesy Sideshow Gallery.
“Three strong women” is how Darryl Hughto, fond husband of Susan Roth, describes the participants in “Color & Edge: Lauren Olitski Susan Roth Ann Walsh,” at Sideshow (through May 20). The catalogue essay, by Sarah K. Rich, further ties together these three artists (more…)

HERE, THEN & NOW

April 13, 2012

Tags: Frank Bowling, Arthur B. Davies, Willard Boepple

Willard Boepple at Lori Bookstein. Courtesy of the artist & Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York. Photo: Etienne Frossard.
Two galleries opened 3 shows worthy of note on March 29. I’m sorry that I didn’t get around to reviewing them earlier, but I’ve been troubling my pretty little head over the many comments that David Cohen got for his negative review in artcritical.com of the Jack Bush show at Freedman Art. My positive review (more…)

"EXQUISITE POOP"

March 30, 2012

Tags: Alexis Duque

Alexis Duque, "Infamous City" 2010. Acrylic on canvas, 15 x 20 in.
Normally, I’m not wild about illustration, but one current exhibition deals with it entertainingly. The show is “Exquisite Poop: Blind Reproduction: A surrealist art and writing game,” at a gathering of the tribes (through April 29). Despite its seemingly scatological title, it’s a most stimulating exhibition, organized by (more…)

THE HAPPY ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST

March 27, 2012

Tags: Hofmann

Hans Hofmann. Black Diamond. 1961. Oil on canvas, 60 x 52 inches (152.4 x 132 cm). Courtesy Ameringer-McEnery-Yohe.
Bursting with the tonic energy of spring, we have “Hans Hofmann: Art Like Life is Real,” at Ameringer-McEnery-Yohe in Chelsea (through April 21). Since 1983, I’ve seen many Hofmann shows at galleries representing his estate, this one & also its predecessor, André Emmerich. Rarely have these been more than low-key attempts to unload Hofmann’s semi-representational paintings of the 1930s, or minor works on paper, but this time -- hallelujah! --- we have a real live paintings show, occupying the main space of the gallery and not its little vermiform appendix gallery behind the receptionist’s desk. (more…)

A REMARKABLE FAMILY

March 26, 2012

Tags: Matisse, Picasso

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). Landscape near Collioure. 1905. Oil on canvas, 18 1/8 x 21 5/8 in. (46 x 54.9 cm). Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, gift of Johannes Rump, 1928. (c) 2012 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The best museum show in town at the moment is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it’s packing in the crowds. It’s “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde,” and pays homage to four American siblings whose family fortunes were based in San Francisco, but who took up residence in Paris (more…)

Selected Works

Memoir
A journalist tells how she developed a radical theory of abstract painting through varied experience.
Travel
The go-go mini-guide telling where ‘60s swingers hung out, and how they went about swinging.

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