Category Archives: Thinking About
Invisible Man
Joseph Elmer Yoakum June 20 – July 26, 2019 Venus Over Manhattan 980 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10075 Thirty-five years ago I reviewed an exhibition that attempted to show Joseph Yoakum’s influence on a wide range of artists working … Continue reading
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Posted in Notes on..., Reviews, Thinking About
Tagged Joseph E. Yoakum, Joseph Elmer Yoakum, Joseph Yoakum, Outsider, Outsider Art, Venus Over Manhattan
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Minority Report
Dana Schutz: Imagine Me and You Petzel January 10 – February 23, 2019 Dana Schutz has enjoyed a rather fervent following almost since day one of her career, extolled alike by critics, collectors, artists, and ordinary viewers. Multiple artists have … Continue reading
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Tower of Power
Hilma af Klint: Painting for the Future at the Guggenheim October 12, 2018 – April 23, 2019 Weeks after viewing the revelatory Hilma af Klint exhibition at the Guggenheim, three thoughts continue to circle around in my mind. First, naturally, … Continue reading
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Posted in Don't Miss, Notes on..., Reviews, Thinking About
Tagged Guggenheim, Hilma af Klint
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The Raw and the Cooked
Ordinarily I only refer to my previously published articles on the ArtMonkeyWrench Links to Other Writing page. I’m making an exception and reposting this piece directly on my site because it’s the very first essay I wrote for Artcritical and … Continue reading
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Wirsum 2018
On Dangerous Ground Like Isaac Bashevitz Singer’s simple but honest hero Gimpel the Fool, Wirsum’s goofy characters often inhabit a dangerous, unpredictable territory. Yet, like Gimpel, they manage, whether from divine intervention or sheer luck, to find a happy ending. … Continue reading
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Posted in Notes on..., Studio Visits, Thinking About
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Wirsum 1984
I’ve been thinking a lot about Karl Wirsum lately. As luck would have it, a selection of his work titled Mr. Whatzit: Selections from the 1980s is currently showing at Derek Eller Gallery through October 8, 2017. What follows is … Continue reading
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Death and the Critic
For me, the difficulty writing about visual art starts with my struggle to describe the open-ended and visceral experience of looking within the far narrower limitations of language. Prose writers complain about the information and nuance lost when their work … Continue reading
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The Whitney Biennial: This, That, and the Other Thing
The 2017 Whitney Biennial The seventy-eighth installment, March 17 through June 11, 2017 People have expressed problems with the this year’s 78th Biennial, as one can assume they have since the very first one in 1932. It is, once again, … Continue reading
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The Chimera Francis Picabia: Our Heads Are Round so Our Thoughts Can Change Direction Museum of Modern Art, New York November 20, 2016 – March 19, 2017 Problem Child Francis Picabia’s art continues to confound. To simply read the reviews … Continue reading
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Unquiet Americans
From Pop to Punk: Peter Saul February 25th – April 25th, 2015 Venus Over Manhattan 980 Madison Avenue, FL 3 New York, New York 10075 Peter Saul, who will be 81 this year, has been happily making trouble for over … Continue reading
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Sundays in the Arbor with Gladys
Gladys Nilsson October 23 – December 6th, 2014 Garth Greenen Gallery 529 West 20th Street – 10th floor New York, NY 10011 How happy I was to walk into Garth Greenan Gallery this past Saturday and find that the exhibition … Continue reading
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Posted in Notes on..., Reviews, Thinking About
Tagged Chicago Imagists, Garth Greenen Gallery, Gladsy Nilsson, Hairy Who, Women Artists
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And now a word from our sponsor…
Today is the end of the art fair week in New York, at least until part two arrives in May with Frieze and its satellite fairs. If you moved through one cavernous space after another as I did, then no … Continue reading
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Posted in Mentions, Thinking About
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