Art
Pastel Then, Pastel Now
The Swiss artist Nicolas Party is both the subject and curator of Pastel, an extraordinary exhibition examining the under-appreciated, fugitive medium and its history.
Weekend
Art
Painting on a Knife’s Edge
With ATOMIC, her new body of work, Patricia Satterlee pitches us into abstract apparitions of heaven and hell before pulling us back to earth.
Art
Portrait of an Invisible Portraitist
I cannot think of another person who has given us such intimate portraits of everyone from Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, and Jasper Johns to Eartha Kitt, Toni Morrison, and Patti Smith.
Art
Philip Taaffe, Symbolist and Naturalist
Taaffe is able to bring the exterior, visible world as well as the interior imagined world into his paintings. To me, this is what distinguishes him from his contemporaries.
Art
Required Reading
This week, the problem with Superchief, reviewing Calgary's new Central Library, Judith Butler's performative gripe, a map of New York City's endangered languages, best museums of 2019, and more.
Books
A Poet Takes Up Biography
Baron Wormser offers empathetic but unflinching portraits of a diverse group of historical figures.
Art
El Greco, Modernist Hero
Set the works of El Greco alongside those of Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, or Pablo Picasso, and you can see why they admired and copied him.
Art
Seeking the Soul of Iceland
It is not surprising that a music star would have an exhibition at an art gallery. What is surprising is how compelling and meaningful this show, by Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi, really is.
Art
Paintings by the Famous, the Forgotten, and the Emerging
Two exhibitions explore the work of three painters in a chain of influence: Alan Davie, David Hockney, and Christina Quarles.
Art
Drawing as Refuge
Pete Schulte's drawings at first seem to be easily apprehended and quickly digested, but they demand a deeper reflection on choices and motives.
Art
A Truly Rebellious Artist
Is Joanne Greenbaum making fun of collectors’ tastes, or is she enlarging the definition of art? The fact that you cannot tell is what is so great about her work.
Art
Matthew Wong: Kind of Blue
It seems that Wong was in touch with his deepest feelings and they came through in all of his art; this is what makes him special.