Art
The Chinese Focus at Armory
There are few hot topics in the art world like China, which along with its growing economic might is starting to flex its cultural soft power and demonstrate that it is central to any global dialogue.
Reviews
Film
Why a New Film on Particle Physics Is Essential Viewing
In terms of understanding the very nature of our world, it's hard to overestimate the significance of the Large Hadron Collider, and a new documentary makes a very convincing case.
Art
Vaulting Through Volta NY
A cynic might observe, correctly, that a large commercial fair is as good a place as any to be reminded that most art sucks.
Art
Independent, but Still an Art Fair
The Independent art fair was born out of a sprawling nonprofit project founded by dealer Elizabeth Dee. Called the X Initiative, it turned the former Chelsea home of the Dia Art Foundation into a yearlong hub of exhibitions, performance, conversations, and more, all with an alternative bent. As it w
Art
Beat Nite Notebook: Ken Weathersby at Parallel Art Space
If, as the philosopher of art Nelson Goodman has argued, "Denotation is the core of representation and is independent of resemblance," then Ken Weathersby’s tight wooden grids on view in Parallel Art Space's Off the Wall are more than the mere "paintings" the artist calls them — they fully inhabit t
Art
Rare Windows Into the Past: Canterbury Stained Glass Arrives at the Cloisters
Six of the medieval stained-glass windows that usually soar some 60 feet up in England's Canterbury Cathedral are on their first journey outside of their ecclesiastical home, brought down to a more intimate level in an exhibition at the Cloisters in Upper Manhattan.
Art
Whitney Biennial 2014: Where Have All the Politics Gone?
The 2014 Whitney Biennial has many things: oversized ceramics, big abstract and figurative paintings, experimental jazz, videos of people having sex, and bead curtains. What it doesn’t have all that much of is politics.
Art
Dreaming of Fluorescent Men
“Sun Hat Sunset” (2012), a painting by Robin F. Williams currently on view at PPOW Gallery, shows a stubble-chinned man casually smoking a cigarette and wearing a floppy, oversized hat — the whimsical kind usually seen on women at the beach. The portrait elicits a startling contrast between the man’
Art
Two Mythological Creatures Rise from the Castoffs of China's Construction
The myth of the phoenix casting itself into the flames only to rise up stronger is powerful and monumental, with reverberations of self-sacrifice, destruction, hope, and regeneration. In an installation in the nave of Manhattan's Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Chinese artist Xu Bing has realized
Art
Sparkling in the Shadow of Ab-Ex
One of the more intriguing and underappreciated of American art movements is the group called the Indian Space Painters. Seeking an innately American response to Cubism and Surrealism, artists such as Steve Wheeler, Peter Busa, and Robert Barrell began in the late 1930s to combine elements of Native
Art
'Space Heater' at Harbor Gallery
It wasn’t technically on the list for Beat Nite, but the door was open and the color palette drew me in: orange-y reds, pinkish purples and lavender, warm, welcoming blues and turquoise. The artworks in Space Heater, the group show currently on view at Harbor Gallery, match incredibly well — not usu
Art
Mel Chin's Media Hacks and Conceptual Beauty
NEW ORLEANS — Considering that one of Mel Chin's most audacious works appeared before an audience of millions on network television over a two-year period, it's curious that he's not more of a household name.