(An Appropriate Distance)

 

FROM THE MAYOR'S DOORSTEP

This autumn is a golden moment for lovers of fine modernist abstraction. There are four – count ‘em, 4 – excellent Manhattan gallery shows of stars of that persuasion currently on view. At the new Hales Project Room, we have Frank Bowling (through October 15). At Pace, we have John Hoyland (through October 21). At Paul Kasmin, we have Jules Olitski & Anthony Caro (through October 25), and at Yares, we have Larry Poons (through October 28).

I am a great fan of all five of these artists. However, since I started this website in 2010, I have written about Caro and Bowling 9 times apiece, about Poons 11 times, and about Olitski, 17 times. Therefore, I will confine my enthusiasm for all four of them to relatively modest dimensions this time around, in the interests of posting my remarks on all of them sooner rather than later. Since I have never written about Hoyland before, though, I will have more to say about him (and take a little longer to say it). Read More 

On October 1, Larry Poons will be celebrating his 80th birthday. It doesn’t seem possible somehow. When I saw him at the opening of “Larry Poons: Momentum” (through October 28) at Yares on Fifth Avenue, he looked just as wiry and energetic as ever.

His latest paintings, too, bespoke an-ever youthful enthusiasm, as well as his hallmark medley of bright, mellifluous colors in delicately brushy configurations suggestive of floral motifs (I’m not the first to be reminded by this latest style of his of the lily-pads of Monet).  Read More 

Having arrived on this planet the year before Poons did, Frank Bowling is now comfortably ensconced among the ranks of the octogenarians. He too continues to paint away as busily as ever in his London studio, but for its inaugural exhibition, the pocket-sized Hales Project Room on Delancey Street opted to offer to American viewers six modestly scaled Bowling acrylics on canvas executed in the late 70s and early 80s, when the artist was working a London studio measuring just 12 x 14 feet.

The show as a whole is called “Frank Bowling: Metropolitanbloooms” (through October 15). Read More 

Paul Kasmin, son of the Englishman John (aka “Kas”), is nothing if not ambitious. According to the Wikipedia “stub” dedicated to his gallery, he opened first in SoHo in 1989, but really only in the last few years has he become a major player in Chelsea, with three venues & a stimulating mix of historic & contemporary artists.

This fall, all three of his venues opened the season with what can be read as a progression tracing the history of modernism in America, and thereby hopefully serving to nail down color-field painting and sculpture as its logical apogee.  Read More 

As the summer season wound its way towards Labor Day, I visited two moderately interesting shows at The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Cristobal de Villalpando: Mexican Painter of the Baroque” (through October 15), and “World War I and the Visual Arts” (through January 7). Read More 

Still catching up on summer highlights, I gave you two shows for which I abandoned the Big Apple on August 19, “Jackson Pollock: The Graphic Works,” and “Avedon’s America” both at the Guild Hall in East Hampton (and both through October 9). Although the second show reminded me of my middle-brow childhood, and the first, of my (somewhat more) high-brow adulthood, both furnished a wealth of pleasure. Read More 

If you don’t care much for painting or sculpture, but want to have a fun time reliving the heady days of the late ‘60s and the early ‘70s, when postmodernism was still (relatively) fresh & original, let me recommend “Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium,” at the Whitney Museum of American Art (through October 1). Read More 

Welcome back, readers! Lots of goodies in town in September, but one out-of-town show must get precedence, since it's closing so soon. It is "Great British Drawings from the Ashmolean Museum" at the Princeton University Art Museum (through September 17). And when that title says "great," it means it! Read More