(An Appropriate Distance)

 

FROM THE MAYOR'S DOORSTEP

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston is staging what sounds like one of the all-time great shows, at any rate for those of us who relate strongly to colore (as opposed to disegno), and who therefore revere Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488-1576) even over Vasari's favorite, Michelangelo. To give Tiziano his English name, the show is "Titian:  Women, Myth & Power," a cycle of six monumental paintings on mythological themes painted mostly in the 1550s by this quintessentially Venetian master (through January 2, 2022). Read More 

 This column is indeed fortunate in having an overseas correspondent, David Evison, to review three shows by Helen Frankenthaler currently on view in London. Particularly this is fortunate because Evison is a sculptor, and the biggest surprise of all three shows is a sculpture by an artist far better known as a painter. Herewith Evison's report: Read More 

One of two group shows that I saw and enjoyed on the Lower East Side was "The Secret Garden: Redux of a Year's Exhibitions at 1GAP Gallery, Brooklyn," at the Equity Gallery on Broome Street (closed August 14). This show was guest-curated by  David Cohen, editor of artcritical.com. On display were modestly-scaled samples of work by ten artists whom Cohen, in another guest-curatorial stint, had previously honored with far greater exposure over the past year in three consecutive exhibitions at the spacious 1GAP Gallery in One Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn. Read More 

The second group  show I saw and enjoyed on the Lower East Side was "In Full Bloom" at Lichtundfire on Rivington Street (through August 20).  This is an exhibition that as its press release says, "addresses the depiction of floral motifs, plant life, vegetation and the rich landscape of a season indicative of growth and bloom." Read More 

If you ask me, the best show in New York is "The Frick Reframed." This is the name that The Frick Collection has given to the rehanging of its matchless collection of Old Masters in the Marcel Breuer building originally built for the Whitney Museum.  This collection will be there for two years while the Frick's own building undergoes extensive renovations.  But don't wait for two years to give yourselves a treat. Read More