(An Appropriate Distance)

 

FROM THE MAYOR'S DOORSTEP

Possibly because it’s September, we are being treated to a spate of fine abstraction, including shows by Larry Poons, Anne Truitt, Frank Bowling & Ed Clark. Since a) I couldn’t decide which of these following four exhibitions were most deserving of illustration and b) I have already written about these four excellent artists before, I am going to give my readers four relatively abbreviated descriptions of these creations in the following posts. My hope is that, in getting my thoughts online at least two weeks before the first of these shows goes down, I will enable my readers to get to them by themselves, and witness the wonders I describe for themselves. Read More 

With a birth date of May 6, 1926, New Orleans-born, Paris-educated Ed Clark doesn’t get around that much anymore. However, Mnuchin on East 78th Street has taken over the task of promulgating his talents with “Ed Clark: A Survey” (through October 20). This handsome group consists of 20 medium-sized to very large abstract paintings dating from the last half-century -- plus a touching little and very representational self-portrait from 1947-49.  Read More 

With a birthdate of February 26, 1934, Guyana-born, London-based Frank Bowling finds it harder to get around than it used to be, but he still made it to the opening of “Frank Bowling: Make It New” at Alexander Gray Associates (through October 13). And all his American fans (including myself) were very glad to see him.  Read More 

Anne Truitt (1921-2004) is no longer with us, but her art most assuredly lives on. She is best known for her remarkably pure but nonetheless sinewy tall narrow sculptures, like square columns. Now that she is gone, this is the second Truitt paintings show that Matthew Marks (which represents the estate) has put on. I liked the first okay, but this one is much, much better—in fact, like socko.  Read More 

At the tender age of 81, Larry Poons keeps on having so many shows that I have difficulty keeping up with him. But the last solo exhibition of his that I reviewed – exactly a year ago, and also at Yares Art– placed the emphasis on his recent paintings, and allotted only a smaller and less conspicuous space to the earlier ones. This time the shoe is on the other foot.
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Everybody else is hurtling into autumn, but before I plunge into "Eugène Delacroix," the huge and highly appealing autumn show at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, let me linger briefly over an insight I had into its permanent collection this summer.

I shall also offer a few thoughts about "Heavenly Bodies" its record-shattering summer blockbuster (through October 8), and four smaller and less successful spring-into-summer shows, since closed..

Finally let me call to your attention two very small but altogether delectable exhibitions, both still with us: "Dangerous Beauty: Medusa in Classical Art” (through January 6, 2019) and “African American Portraits: Photographs from the 1940s and 1950s." (through October 6).  Read More 

What a range of art Paris hosted in the years between the two world wars! At The Jewish Museum, the big summer show is “Chaim Soutine: Flesh” (through September 16). It presents 32 mostly still-life paintings that the moody, Russian-born expressionist made between ca. 1916, three years after he arrived in Paris at the age of 20, and 1943, the year of his death. At the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the big show is “Giacometti” (through September 12). This full-dress retrospective takes the wickedly witty Swiss-born, Paris-based sculptor (1901-1966) from his early surrealist period , in the late 1920s and early 1930s, through his "existential" period, at its apogee in the 1950s and 1960s, Read More 

On August 8, I paid a call to The Museum of Modern Art. First, I skated through the current hanging of its permanent collection (ongoing). Second, I took in "Constantin Brancusi Sculpture" (through February 18, 2019). Third -- and most absorbing -- I visited "Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948-1980" (through January 13, 2019).  Read More