In Seongmin Ahn’s paintings, it is not our past we are looking at but our possible future.
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. He is a Professor of Critical Studies at Mason Gross School of the Arts (Rutgers University).
Seeing Ourselves in Greg Colson’s Quirky Pie Chart Paintings
The artist’s droll paintings present the pie chart as a useful monitor of a group’s behavior, while also revealing it to be exclusionary and superficial.
Abstract Art Did Not Begin With Paul Cézanne
Odili Donald Odita challenges the long-held belief that abstract art is a purely Western tradition.
Girls, Gods, and Rabbits
Leiko Ikemura is concerned with the meeting place of the spiritual and physical, the ineffable and material worlds.
Shirley Jaffe’s Outlier Beginnings
A show of early works by Jaffe challenges viewers to think about the road she pursued in her art, and what it means to go your own way.
Siobhan McBride Unsettles the Familiar
What makes Siobhan McBride’s work as a whole interesting is her interest in the ambiguity, suggestibility, and elusiveness of everyday life.
Yun-Fei Ji’s Great Leap Forward
The Chinese painter learned the state-sanctioned style of Socialist Realism and then elected to unlearn it in order to reinvent himself.
Philip Taaffe Digs Deeper Into the Rabbit Hole
It seems Taaffe is looking at the present as an extinction event, and that one purpose of painting is to bequeath some record of history and time to the future.
Xylor Jane’s Cosmic Grids
The rules that structure Jane’s paintings take her to some place strange and fascinating, beautiful and perplexing, mind-boggling and riveting.
Pat Steir Accepts Time’s Passage With Grace
Steir’s work of the ’90s was the result of physically demanding processes. What happens when you cannot do what you once did?
You Can’t Coat the Holocaust With Gold
Anselm Kiefer’s philosophy has its roots in German Romanticism, particularly the belief that the artist can mediate between the creative and the divine, between earth and heaven.
Anne Harvey in a Club of One
There is the singular artist and then there is the more exclusive club that has only one member. Harvey belongs to the latter.