Opinion
An Open Letter to Frank Stella on the Occasion of His Whitney Retrospective
Dear Frank Stella, Your object-paintings choke me.
Frank Stella
Art
Something Worth Arguing About: Frank Stella Fills the Whitney
Frank Stella: A Retrospective, which opened yesterday at the Whitney Museum of American Art, is a brilliantly curated, blatantly overhung masterstroke of an exhibition that turns the artist’s weaknesses into strengths and his strengths into powerhouses.
Art
Extreme Abstraction: A Brief Introduction to Martin Barré’s Cosmogony
Some abstract painters are harder to fathom than others. In fact a few of them seem quite hopelessly indecipherable. A case in point is French painter Martin Barré (1924-1996), who has been receiving increasing and well-deserved attention in New York these past ten years.
Art
A Postal Approach to Abstraction
CHICAGO — Jordan Scott makes pictures by collaging thousands of vintage postage stamps onto panel and canvas and coating the surface in resin.
Art
Tom Sachs's Pointless Americana
PARIS — In a search for art that reacts to the inequalities of globalization, must art lose touch with the sort of grace that exceeds the hand, a grace that couldn’t be anything but artificial and technological?
Art
Some Thoughts on Clement Greenberg and His Legacy
In his introductory essay to Vitamin P, a survey of contemporary painting first published by Phaidon in 2002, the poet and critic Barry Schwabsky takes pains to point out the variety of stylistic positions available to a contemporary painter. In doing so, Schwabsky suggests that there is no single i
Art
America’s Grand Gestures Reign Supreme Again in Basel
BASEL, Switzerland — Fifty-five years ago, the exhibition The New American Painting arrived at the Kunsthalle Basel. It was the first stop on a yearlong tour that touted the work of seventeen Abstract Expressionists before eight European countries — the first comprehensive exhibition to be sent to E
Art
Nobuo Sekine and Charles Ray and Their Sculptures Filled with Liquid
Lee Ufan’s letter to Stella underscores his ongoing critique of Western aesthetics, which began with the specific objects we associate with Minimalism. Whereas Minimalism, at least as Stella codified it, emphasizes the material presence of an object isolated from the passage of time, the artists ass
Art
Cosmic Comic: Frank Stella’s Fine Disregard
The first thing I noticed about Frank Stella’s classic “pinstripe” paintings from the late 1950s-early 1960s — gathered from hither and yon for the splendid exhibition, Frank Stella: Black, Aluminum and Copper Paintings — is how at home they looked in L&M Arts’ stately Upper East Side townhouse. The
Art
The Plastic Bag as Artistic Muse
In Patrick Griffin's recent exhibition at The Journal Gallery in Williamsburg, Common Courtesy, he focused on an unusual subject matter: the plastic bag. If you live in a major city then you are more than familiar with these little guys; they accumulate under your sink, get stuck in that storm drain
Opinion
Minimalism's (Ahem) "Relations"
A golden nugget from James Kalm's Facebook profile page and the birth of a fantastic new term, "vaginal surround sound."
Opinion
Join Frank Stella as He Visits Philip Johnson's Iconic Glass House
Philip Johnson's Glass House has become a symbol of 20th C. American architecture. Here artist Frank Stella, who was a friend of Johnson, revisits the estate and talks about the elder statesman of American architecture and the uniqueness of the site.