Art
A towering nude man greets every visitor to Sperone Westwater gallery on the Lower East Side. This ten foot tall figure, also known as “Jim Revisited”, made in 2011, looks so realistic that it stops nearly everyone dead in their tracks upon entering the gallery. The people-watching is great as viewe
Art
Scott Kiernan’s canvases want to be underestimated. Their initial impression is bland, but the longer one gazes at these pictures, the weirder and more fascinating they become. At his NURTUREart exhibition Once around the block (twice), Kiernan’s art reveals itself more slowly, doesn’t care if you o
Art
Meg Hitchcock spent 135 hours gluing letters on the wall, floor and ceiling of the Famous Accountants gallery in Bushwick. She adhered them one-by one and side-by-side. They form a cord that twists around and eventually intertwines, it weaves itself into a thick rope of words, which spells out the e
Art
Despite Wednesday night’s snow storm, tough cookies crowded the Austrian Cultural Forum to near capacity for Alpine Desire’s opening reception. The wine was gone by 7pm but people stayed. Examining mountain imagery in contemporary art, as well as a few earlier modernist and romanticist paintings, th
Art
Abstract Expressionist New York shines a bright and bold light on Jackson Pollock. Although the selection on view is obviously not as extensive as MoMA’s major retrospective in 1998-99, the show is still a rare and precious opportunity to see many of Pollock’s paintings under one roof. His paintings
Art
Jim Herbert’s paintings of naked lovers are not for the feint of heart. At first glance, viewers might want to look away as though catching a glimpse of a couple kissing. And some people will totally avert their eyes from these intense canvases. At the opening for the recent show at the English Kill
Art
A small coconut tree grows in the corner of Nurture Art. Simply titled “Coconut” (2009), and created by artist Gudmundur Thoroddsen, the leaves seem to reach towards the skylight. A certain twist makes it art — a few of the leaves are painted pink. It resembles one of Matisse’s colorful trees come t
Art
Everything that matters happens in an office these days. To survive in today’s world, one can’t help but burn with curiosity about why some rise to the top while others gets stuck at the bottom box of the organizational chart. The Office, Mad Men or The Devil Wears Prada all hit this nerve with verv
Art
To keep it real, a reality TV show about visual artists vying to be “at the top” is way too corporate to earn serious street cred in the art world. Nevertheless, I attended multiple shoots last fall of this BRAVO project to see how it was all going to play out and to get to know the contestants pers
Art
After a decade epitomized by airbrushed photographs that cast the face as a smooth, even and perfect plane of color, these artists are rebelling with wickedly raw and vibrantly colored skin. It was a welcome surprise … Matisse is back from the dead and training artists at an underground tattoo parlo
Art
What made the 2010 Bushwick Open Studios so phenomenal was the chance to stomp through hundreds of studios and draw connections. I was surprised by how various artists who have probably never met each other are all re-envisioning the Old Masters with a playful and lighthearted streak.
Art
Daniel Larkin goes looking for pterodactyls in some recent art exhibitions. He writes: “Some artists have discovered that this flying reptile have some real cross-over potential. At first, this sounds like an awfully kitschy idea, but when this airborne creature is refracted, distilled, and boiled d