Posts tagged "gallery beat"
John Clement: Oiler
Bigger really is better. This was my thought as I left the Causey Contemporary Gallery after watching John Clement and crew erect an 18-foot-tall welded steel sculpture titled Oiler. Clement, already well known for his large and ambitious sculpture, became smitten with the idea of building one of his pieces using industrial-sized pipe originally manufactured...
Jeppe Hein
One needs not even enter Jeppe Hein’s show at 303 Gallery to understand that the artist has an interest in the gallery space: a telescopic fisheye lens mounted in 303’s storefront allows a sneaky voyeuristic peek inside, but also turns the gallery upside-down, in a fittingly tongue-in-cheek introduction.
Butt Johnson: The Name of the Rose
The rose has been so overused as an allegorical symbol that the flower is devoid of power and importance. Or so argues Butt Johnson in his first solo show at CRG Gallery, The Name of the Rose. It’s an interesting argument, but little of the work follows through on the promise of reconceputalizing a symbology...
Celia Gerard: Regions of Unlikeness
In his seminal essay “Cezanne’s Doubt,” philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote of the French artist’s painterly process, of how vacillating fields of chiseled brushstrokes simultaneously defined and questioned the objects at hand. Merleau-Ponty concluded that for Cezanne “‘conception’ [could not] precede ‘execution.’” The results, rigorously analytical and forever skeptical, set into motion the idea of the...
East Side Migration Patterns
The recent moves by Upper East Side galleries exhibit a continued restless spirit In a constantly shifting market, New York City galleries are always coming and going, changing and adapting to trends. But the drift of major galleries trading their tony Upper East Side addresses for the larger spaces and more art-centric streets of Chelsea...
That Neighborhood Feeling
The Lower East Side continues to expand its artistic boundaries Lesley Heller understands that the New York art scene—like its neighborhoods—constantly changes, morphing to accommodate new movements, people and ideas. Heller adapted to this changing environment, moving her gallery since 1994 from Soho, to two separate locations on the Upper East Side and finally opening...
Five From L.A.
The title of Galerie Lelong’s current exhibition emphasizes the artists’ common home base, but they share other traits as well. All produce painterly canvases, all are women, all earned a masters degree within the past dozen years, and all already have serious exhibition records. What’s more important, their work—limited unfortunately to just two pieces by...
In the Tonalist Mood: Paintings from the 1860s to the Present
Tonalism developed from two European springs: the French Barbizon School, by way of its American disciples, and Aestheticism. Practiced from the mid-19th-century into the early 20th, it was less a coherent movement than a shared sensibility among Europhile American artists. Chief among these were George Inness (and his followers) and James McNeil Whistler, American expatriate...
Seth Price: Non Speech, Fire & Smoke
The videos in Seth Price’s Non Speech, Fire & Smoke were uploaded to YouTube last year and, with this show, Friedrich Petzel Gallery maintains the isolating nature of the Internet. Each video is individually packaged in its own mini cubicle with a single set of headphones. The viewer must press play on the DVD player,...
Sharon Ellis: Paintings
Los Angeles-based Sharon Ellis produces hallucinatory landscapes of impressive vibrancy and complexity. Using a rich and varied palette, she delves deep into the essence of nature, imbuing it with sensational powers. She finds her scenes near her home in Southern California and while her paintings could be described as Californian, they really portray an imaginary...
Joseph O. Holmes: The Urban Wilderness
By Valerie Gladstone Joseph O. Holmes is a genius at making the familiar new. Any one of the 12 photographs here warrants many hours of viewing, subtle illuminating details only becoming apparent over time. Having spent his childhood in Pennsylvania often walking in the hills, farms and fields, he discovers similarities to that landscape here...
Wijnanda Deroo: Inside New York Eateries
By Nicholas Wells Devoid of people, Wijnanda Deroo’s photographs maintain a solemn calmness, even when set amid the bustle of everyday life. Inside New York Eateries, the Dutch-born, New York-based artist’s new show at Robert Mann Gallery, continues her career-long exploration of empty interior spaces.
Pavers
By John Goodrich Last year Schroeder Romero & Shredder acquired a new space and a new mission to mix decorative art into its offerings of contemporary art. This quirky combination of fine and applied arts perfectly suits the tenor of the times, but gallery-goers hankering for “high” art will still be rewarded by Pavers, an...
Lawrence Weiner: Gyroscopically Speaking
By Valerie Gladstone Lawrence Weiner, a central figure in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s, continues to explore the relationship between human beings and objects, using language as a critical element and link. Driven by the belief that by using language he frees viewers to interpret his works according to their perceptions and...
Lee Krasner Paintings 1959-1965
By Valerie Gladstone This revelatory show offers a glimpse into a rarely seen side of painter Lee Krasner. While best known as a lyrical colorist, she went through a long period of using subdued colors when suffering from chronic insomnia. Painting in the middle of the night with only artificial light, she didn’t trust herself...
Laura Battle: Recent Work
By Mario Naves Residents of Morris Heights—or, at least, those who travel regularly on the 4 train—are confronted with a choice in destinations upon entering the Burnside Avenue station: Manhattan or the galaxy’s farthest reaches?
Kristen Morgin: New York Be Nice
By Melissa Stern I can only assume that the title of Kristen Morgin’s New York debut exhibition, New York Be Nice, is a plea for a kind review, because it bears no relation to the work itself. It’s an odd title for a body of work that references neither New York nor niceness. Rather, this...
Judith Godwin
By Valerie Gladstone Judith Godwin has been an Abstract Expressionist since the heyday of the movement, never winning the attention of her more famous colleagues like Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline, but producing exciting canvases that show the strong influence of architecture and dance. Fierce, strong and expressive, her abstractions combine rich color and vigorous...
Frank Lind: Oils & Water
By Mario Naves Eccentricity in art isn’t a virtue unless it’s bolstered by aesthetic merit, by how well an artist uses the materials of his medium to endow personal quirks with body and purpose. Having said that, skill alone (or force of will) can’t generate eccentricity; ersatz eccentricity is a hollow thing, a pose by...
