Art
Necessary Ambiguity: Sangram Majumdar’s Recent Work
In a media-riddled world where images rapidly circulate, moving from momentary commodity (“gone viral”) to forgotten waste, Sangram Majumdar is interested in “what stays.”
John Yau
John Yau is an award winning poet, critic, curator, and publisher of Black Square Editions. He has published over 50 books of poetry, fiction, and art criticism.
Books
Why I Am a Member of the Ron Padgett Fan Club
One mind-stumping sensation a reader is likely to glean from Ron Padgett’s Collected Poems (Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 2013) is that the poems wrote themselves, and that he just happened to be in the room when they showed up. There is even a substantial section in Collected Poems that Padgett
Art
Are We Ready for the News that Peter Young Delivers Us?
In the summer of 1969, Peter Young left New York – and his studio on the Bowery – and set off for the American West, where he drifted around for nearly two years before settling down in Bisbee, Arizona, where he still resides.
Art
India’s Nasreen Mohamedi Belongs to Everyone
After the filmmaker Nagisa Oshima was called the “Japanese Godard” for what must have been the umpteenth time, he wittily replied by calling Godard “the French Oshima.” I thought of Oshima’s response once more when I went to Nasreen Mohamedi: Becoming One at the Talwar Gallery (September 13–November
Art
Jake Berthot Doesn’t Need To Be Original
For the past twenty years Jake Berthot has painted his vision of the Catskill Mountains, where he has lived since 1994, after living in Manhattan, much of it on the Bowery, for thirty years. A painter of what he calls “small sensations,” Berthot has included fourteen paintings and six drawings compl
Art
Francisca Sutil’s Method of Counting Time
Francisca Sutil is a Chilean abstract artist who lived in New York from 1977 until 1992, when she returned to Santiago, Chile, where she currently lives and works. She came to New York to study printmaking at Pratt Institute. In 1978, she discovered papermaking and, within a short time that included
Art
The World According to Wirsum
Do you ever wonder how stupid the New York art world can be? Well, if you don’t have enough proof, here is another example to add to your cache. Karl Wirsum at Derek Eller (October 12–November 16) is the artist’s first exhibition of recent work in New York since 1988.
Art
Dark Paintings Done in a Dark Time: Lester Johnson’s Men
Lester Johnson (1919–2010) was an innovative figurative painter who has never quite fit into any of the accepted narratives of postwar American art, and that alone makes his work worthy of a longer look.
Art
Peter Acheson’s Obdurate and Tender Talismans
Some artists need to be gurus, always insisting on their elevated place in the hierarchy, while others are happy if younger artists look up to them, content to have companions on their solitary journey. Peter Acheson belongs to the latter group, which is one of the reasons why his current exhibition
Art
An American in Paris: Shirley Jaffe’s Paintings from the 1970s
About her work, Shirley Jaffe has stated: “I want a certain tenseness, a congestion or a combination of forms in which none is stronger than any other. I’m interested in the idea of coexistence.” In her current exhibition, Shirley Jaffe: Paintings from the 1970s at Tibor de Nagy (October 17–November
Art
How to Kiss the Sky: Kyle Staver’s Recent Paintings
You don’t see Kyle Staver’s dark, moonlit domains so much as become their invisible and unacknowledged witness and ally. In an age riddled with cynicism and laced with irony, she envisions a shameless alternative in which mythological figures, such as Daphne, Andromeda, Syrinx, Perseus, and a satyr,
Art
The Poet-Magus of the Lower East Side
Imagine the following scenario: You and your wife live on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. You start a greeting card company, Ink Weed Arts, in 1951, just after the two of you get married. You are a poet and she is a dancer who works as a hand and foot model in advertising. The two of you want to offer