(An Appropriate Distance)

 

FROM THE MAYOR'S DOORSTEP

One major topic of gossip these past few months in the little sub-community of the art world that I inhabit has been the 98-minute documentary entitled "The Price of Everything." The main reason we are interested is that for all practical purposes, its hero is our own Larry Poons, who has thus emerged at the unlikely age of 81 as a movie star. But the film has other attractions as well.

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What could be more appropriate for the Christmas season than an image of the Virgin and Child? And here is The Frick Collection, giving us not one but two fine versions of that subject, in "The Charterhouse of Bruges: Jan Van Eyck, Petrus Christus and Jan Vos" (though January 13).

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This has been a good autumn in New York for fine abstraction. As a result, I am able to present my second set of multi-image entries since Labor Day, again all celebrating shows of fine abstract art. All but one of this latest crop close before Christmas, and I have taken up too much time running around to look at them, so I don’t have the additional time needed to discuss them at length. Therefore I shall below illustrate and discuss as briefly as possible five shows that you might really want to look at for yourselves: those with art by Stuart Davis, Al Loving, Walter Darby Bannard, Morris Louis & Jules Olitski. In addition, I shall comment upon two lesser solo shows: of abstract work by Mary Weatherford & Elizabeth Neel, a show of representational painting by Walton Ford, and the mix of abstract & figurative work in a group show called “The Joy of Color.” Read More 

On September 28, Roberta Smith in The New York Times ran a long article about seven abstract painters having exhibitions in Manhattan. Along with Larry Poons, Frank Bowling, and Ed Clark – all of whom I too reviewed on September 28 -- she celebrated two further shows in Chelsea “Mary Weatherford: I’ve Seen Seven Gray Whales Go By” at Gagosian (closed October 15) and “Elizabeth Neel: Tangled on a Serpent Chair” at Mary Boone (closed October 27). On October 5, I saw these two shows, as well as "Lines Thicken: Stuart Davis in Black and White" at Paul Kasmin (through December 22). Read More 

Pleasure of a more recent vintage awaited me on my next trip to Chelsea. The source is the latest show of Alvin D. Loving (1935-2005), better known as Al Loving, and occupying the handsome new space of Garth Greenan on ground level at 545 West 20th Street. There are only eight pieces of work in “Al Loving: Space, Time, Light” (through December 21), but they come from between 1977 and 1993, which is perhaps my favorite period in this gifted artist’s long career. Read More 

This time, my destination in Chelsea was “Walter Darby Bannard: Paintings from 1969-1975” at Berry Campbell (through December 21), but on the way I stopped in to see “Walton Ford: Barbary” at the handsome new “flagship” gallery of Paul Kasmin at 509 West 27th Street (through December 22). Read More 

Moving on up from Chelsea to midtown we come to Yares Art on Fifth Avenue, and a truly lovely exhibition of fifteen (count ‘em, 15) classic color-field paintings entitled “Morris Louis: Spectrum.” This show will be on through January 12, 2019, though if you plan to visit it between Christmas and New Year’s, you will need to call the gallery, as they had not yet decided which days during that period they would be open when I visited the show). Read More 

For some reason, the top color-field painters of the 1960s (and even a little bit later) seem to be “in” this season in the Manhattan art world, or at least accepted as members in good standing of the ‘60s crowd (as opposed to being ostracized because Clement Greenberg admired them, and although few if indeed any of the younger artists most directly descended from them are deriving the slightest benefit from this new climate).

I say this not only because of the many solo shows I’ve so far reviewed this fall, nor even because of the exquisite mini-show of “Jules Olitski: 60’s Sprays” currently at Leslie Feely but most of all because of three group shows that include some of the artists I most admire and have been or will be mounted in unfamiliar big-league venues.

In this category I would first place “The Joy of Color” at Mnuchin on East 78th Street (closing December 8), second, “Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera,” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (opening December 17), and “Spilling Over: Painting Color in the 1960s,” at the Whitney Museum of American Art (due in March).  Read More