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January 21, 2012
Once again, it’s time for the super-group show at Sideshow, this year titled “MIC:CHECK (occupy)” (through February 26). Proprietor Richard Timperio explains that the title refers to the “human microphones” that the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators used to get the word out, when they were forbidden to use regular mikes. Timperio is nothing if not an anarchist, and the 489 artists (more…)
January 3, 2012
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Frank Wimberley
Frank Wimberley (b. 1926). Bayou. 2010. Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 in. Collection of Spanierman Modern, New York
Sometimes, it seems, all that an artist really needs is the right gallery. So I conclude, anyway, from Frank Wimberley,” at Spanierman Modern, a vigorous and not-easily-forgotten exhibition of 19 abstract expressionist paintings, brilliantly organized by Alice Hammond (through January 14).
I say, “not easily forgotten” because when I saw (more…)
January 1, 2012
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Helen Frankenthaler
As most of the world knows by now, Helen Frankenthaler died on December 27. I will miss her, and I'm sure many others will, too. David Cohen has been kind enough to publish my formal tribute to her in his webzine, artcritical.com A few more informal & personal reminiscences follow below. (more…)
January 1, 2012
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Sherrie Levine, Carsten Höller
Sherrie Levine. Fountain (Madonna), 1991. Cast bronze. 14 1/2 x 14 x 26 in. (36.8 x 35.6 x 66 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy Simon Lee Gallery, London, and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (c) Sherrie Levine
Maurizio Cattelan’s waxworks are not the only show in a Manhattan museum to dress up a fundamentally silly idea with rafts of bureaucratic stuffing & mountains of portentous Artspeak. Two other museums are also weighing in (if that’s the word I want) with undertakings that are even more outspokenly dedicated to the Duchampian notion that anything can be art if the artist says it is. (more…)
December 29, 2011
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George Ault
George Copeland Ault (American, 1891-1948). Brooklyn Ice house, 1926. Oil on canvas. 24 x 30 in. (61 X 76.2 CM). Newark Museum, Purchase 1928 The General Fund
Nevertheless, the Met’s Stieglitz show (reviewed below) is a masterpiece of modernism by comparison with the second big show at the Brooklyn Museum just now, “Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties” (through January 29; thereafter at the Dallas Museum of Art, March 4 through May 27, 2012, and the (more…)
December 24, 2011
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Alfred Stieglitz, 'Abd-al-Samad
'Abd-al-Samad. Two Fighting Camels. Mughal Court at Fatehpur Sikri or Lahore. Ca. 1590. Opaque watercolor and ink on paper. 7 3/8 x 8 1/16 inches (18.8 x 20.5 cm). Private Collection
At the moment, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is glorying in the more sedate forms of postmodernism. No fun & games, no fashion shows, but rather a marked concentration on non-Western art—which can be great art, I don’t deny that, but it’s also frightfully politically correct, the sort of art (more…)
December 22, 2011
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Degas
After the Bath, Woman Drying Her Neck, 1886-95. Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917). Pastel on wove paper. *Paris, Musee d'Orsay, bequest of comte Isaac de Camondo, 1911. * (c) Photo Musee d'Orsay/rmn. *Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Beantown is fortunate. At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is “Degas and the Nude,” curated by George T. M. Shackelford, of the Boston museum, and Xavier Ray, of the Musée d’Orsay. This many-splendored exhibition features 160 works (140 of them by Degas), including paintings, pastels, drawings, monotypes, etchings, lithographs and (more…)
December 5, 2011
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Friedel Dzubas
Friedel Dzubas. Red Marina (sketch). 1972, Magna acrylic, 10 3/4 x 9 3/4 inches.
Currently at Loretta Howard are two shows: “Arrested Motion: Friedel Dzubas 1961-1971," and "Roberto Caracciolo: Seeing Red, A Decade of Work," (both here through December 23). The Caracciolo (on the upper level of the gallery) didn't prompt me to write about it. The Dzubas show, on the other hand, (more…)
December 1, 2011
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Braque, Matisse, Newman, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler
Georges Braque. Céret, Rooftops. 1911. Oil on canvas, 34 3/4 x 25 1/2 inches (88.5 x 65 cm). Private Collection. (c) Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris
If you can deal with the rarefied air north of 34th Street, four galleries on the Upper East Side have five big stars in good to great shows. Or at least in one case, had not have: I greatly regret not having gotten to “Georges Braque: Pioneer of Modernism,” curated by Dr. Dieter Buchhart (more…)
November 29, 2011
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David Evison, Willard Boepple, John McLean, William Perehudoff, Tim Scott
Tim Scott. Woodwind I. 2011. Plywood, H. 90 cm. Image (c)Tim Scott 2011
David Evison, the sculptor, normally lives in Berlin. At the moment, he has a teaching gig in China. Recently, he paused in London to take in an important exhibition there. Below is his report:
"Color and Substance" was the title of an exhibition at Poussin Gallery, Bermondsey St. (more…)
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