To say the exhibition “Facing America: Mario Schifano 1960–65” is an eye opener hardly does it justice.
Author Archives: John Yau
John Yau has published books of poetry, fiction, and criticism.
His latest poetry publications include a book of poems, Further Adventures in Monochrome (Copper Canyon Press, 2012), and the chapbook, Egyptian Sonnets (Rain Taxi, 2012). His most recent monographs are Catherine Murphy (Rizzoli, 2016), the first book on the artist, and Richard Artschwager: Into the Desert (Black Dog Publishing, 2015). He has also written monographs on A. R. Penck, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol. In 1999, he started Black Square Editions, a small press devoted to poetry, fiction, translation, and criticism. He was the Arts Editor for the Brooklyn Rail (2007–2011) before he began writing regularly for Hyperallergic Weekend. He is a Professor of Critical Studies at Mason Gross School of the Arts (Rutgers University).
Vicky Colombet’s Vision of Endless Change
By titling her exhibition “From the Floating World,” Colombet connects with the Japanese belief that one must live in the moment, yet remain detached from material needs and desires.
Garth Weiser Explores the Limits of Technical Wizardry
Moving beyond the confines of abstract signs, Weiser seems to be seeking social and philosophical meaning.
An Asian American Landscape Artist to Be Reckoned With
Kim Van Do takes the full range of our vision, from left to right and sky to ground, to an extreme.
Angela Dufresne Tells a Different Story
I cannot think of another narrative painter as expansive, surprising, funny, unsettling, tender, wacky, challenging, theatrical, and radically imaginative as Angela Dufresne.
Angel Otero’s Paintings of Absence
Otero’s images of water and disaster mirror the wreckage of Hurricane Maria as well as the devastation of COVID-19.
Alix Bailey’s Unfashionable Pursuit
Painting, as a verb, is a way of living in time, of inhabiting a state of solitude, even when you are with other people.
Stephen Pusey’s Remarkable Calligraphic Abstractions
Pusey’s cursive marks sit in that zone where writing becomes drawing and vice versa.
John Mendelsohn’s Paintings of Radiating and Falling Light
The change in hue and density from painting to painting struck me as simultaneously methodical and intuitive.
Drawings of Migration and Pandemic
In her dozens of pastels on handmade paper, Mie Yim seems to start each one over, never attempting to make a variation on a theme.
Altoon Sultan’s Powerful Challenge
Sultan’s works implicitly reject the corporate scale of the Minimalists in favor of a domestic and intimate space
Martin Puryear’s Open Questions
To focus on Puryear’s devotion to craft and the handmade is valid, but now seems too narrow a view.