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February 2, 2012
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Ellen Emmet Rand, David Goerk, James Walsh
James Walsh. Trill. 2009. Acrylic on panel, 11 1/8 x 10 in. Collection of Spanierman Gallery.
Noodling around the galleries, I’ve picked up five situations worth mention. I say “situations” rather than “exhibitions” because in some cases, it was only the work of a single artist that stood out in a group show. Such was the case with Francine Tint, whose acrylic on canvas, “Cybelle 11”, was the (more…)
February 1, 2012
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Tim Scott, Cleve Gray, Stanley Boxer
Stanley Boxer. Capturestheheartland. 1991. Oil and mixed media on canvas, 40 x 46 inches. Collection of Spanierman Modern.
Two old friends, or perhaps “professional acquaintances” would be less presumptuous, are having exhibitions in Manhattan at present. At Loretta Howard, you may see “Tim Scott in the 60s and 70s” (through February 25). I first met this gifted British sculptor back around 1970, when I was living in London and trying to write a novel. (more…)
January 31, 2012
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Emanuel Leutze, Asher B. Durand, Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera. Indian Warrior. 1931. Fresco on reinforced cement in a metal framework, 41 x 52 1/2" (104.14 x 133.35 cm). Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton Massachusetts. Purchased with the Winthrop Hillyer Fund Sc 1934:8-1. (c)2011 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust Mexico, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York
AT THE MET: AMERICAN ART HISTORY
American art history is such a cozy corner of the discipline. Few scholars paid much attention to it prior to the 1960s, which may help to explain why I knew next to nothing about it when I entered grad school in 1974. In grad school, I learned quite a lot about it, thanks to a couple of excellent courses taught by Barbara Novak, but I also learned that an awful lot of (more…)
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…)
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