(An Appropriate Distance)

 

FROM THE MAYOR'S DOORSTEP

One historical show I related to – indeed, strongly related – was "Globalism Pops Back Into View: The Rise of Abstract Expressionism," at Michael Rosenfeld (closed January 25). 

 

This gallery has two specialties, abstract expressionism and African-American art.  By focusing on ab-ex in the early 1940s, before the movement went totally abstract, this show was also able to include a number of distinguished African-American artists who not even by the 1950s  had gone totally abstract, but who created some powerful paintings nevertheless.  In this context, everybody looks perfectly grand. Read More 

One nice thing about my hometown is its central location – one can go north to see art, or one can go south, so that’s what I’ve done – north to see The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and south to Philadelphia, to look in on a thunderous Titian at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and more importantly to linger over the full-dress Norman Lewis retrospective at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

As I am listing these shows more or less in order of their closing dates, I shall deal first with my southern journey & second, with my northern one. Read More 

At The Jewish Museum, we have “From the Margins: Lee Krasner / Norman Lewis, 1945-1952” (through February 1). The implication of this title is that these two artists have been unfairly marginalized in the critical dialog surrounding abstract expressionism because one artist was a woman and the other was of African descent. (Here we go again – that old devil Clement Greenberg was a racist & a sexist, and Harold Rosenberg must – for once – have been just as bad.) Read More