MAY 2009 - ArtSeen – The Brooklyn Rail

Peter Saul, New Paintings

By John Yau

I wonder how many artists would readily admit that Peter Saul has influenced them. He certainly was the first to make high art out of strident and cartoony in-your-face images.

Peter Saul, “Viva La Difference” (2008). Acrylic on canvas,72 × 72 inches (182.9 × 182.9 cm). Courtesy of David Nolan Gallery.

Paul Mogensen and Stephen Rosenthal, Jump: Selected Paintings

By Jim Long

Paul Mogensen and Stephen Rosenthal share the new BLT space on the Bowery. The works on view were selected from earlier exhibitions, inviting re-evaluation in light of changing issues and a new architectural setting. I

Paul Mogensen, “Black widow” (1994).
Oil, 8 feet × 8 feet.

Chromophobia

By Ben La Rocco

on the occasion of viewing Pierre Bonnard: The Late Interiors, November 25–April 12, 2009, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“For Bonnard” (2009). Oil on board, attribution unknown.

Jack Bush, Works on Paper

By Robert C. Morgan

Of the group of Color Field painters associated with the Washington Color School and Post-Painterly Abstraction—the latter term endowed by the critic Clement Greenberg in 1964—the artist I know least about is Jack Bush.

Jack Bush, “Apple Blossom Burst” (1971). Gouache, 221⁄2 × 30 inches.

Martin Kippenberger, The Problem Perspective

By Valery Oisteanu

Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective is the first retrospective of this prolific and controversial German artist, the bulk of whose work was produced from 1977 until his death in 1997 at age 44.

Installation view of Martin Kippenberger’s “The Happy End of Franz Kafka’s ‘Amerika’” (1994), in The Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium at The Museum of Modern Art, 2009. Mixed media, furniture, slide projectors, video projectors, TV monitors, green flooring with white lines, and bleachers. © Estate Martin Kippenberger, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photo © 2009 Jason Mandella

James Hyde, UNBUILT

By Shane McAdams

If time permitted, I would have written an essay this month about the glorification of youth and cool by the art press, through the lens of the Younger Than Jesus show at the New Museum.

James Hyde, “My Rectangle” (2008). Acrylic on wood on digital print, 13 × 10 inches.

Louise Fishman

By Sharon L. Butler

In stark counterpoint to the New Museum’s wryly titled Younger Than Jesus show featuring artists under 33 years old, Cheim & Read is exhibiting the Abstract Expressionist paintings of seventy-year-old Louise Fishman, an artist who has been dedicated exclusively to painting for over fifty years.

Louise Fishman “All Night and All Day” (2009). Oil on canvas, 66 × 57 inches. Courtesy of Cheim & Read.

Mickalene Thomas, She’s Come Undone!

By Kimberly Lamm

Even the word dazzling is not up to the job of describing the kaleidoscopic array of visual pleasures Mickalene Thomas offers in her first solo show at Lehmann Maupin Gallery.

Mickalene Thomas, “Don’t forget about me (Keri)” (2009). Rhinestone, acrylic and enamel on panel, 84 × 72 inches, 213.4 × 182.9 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York.

Nicolas Carone: Paintings from 2008-2009

By Emily Warner

Nicolas Carone, veteran artist of 1940s New York and still painting some sixty years on, presents new work at Washburn Gallery this month: eight fast, vigorous, and poised arrangements in gray and white and black acrylics.

Nicolas Carone, “Social Phobia” (2009). Acrylic on canvas, 75 × 94 in. Courtesy of the Washburn Gallery, New York.

The Generational: Younger Than Jesus

By Thomas Micchelli

The Generational: Younger Than Jesus sent me back to William Blake. In his Songs of Experience, he bids “Youth of delight come hither, / And see the opening morn, / Image of truth new born. / Doubt is fled & clouds of reason, / Dark disputes & artful teazing. / Folly is an endless maze.” (“The Voice of the Ancient Bard”).

Ishmael Randall Weeks

By Thomas Micchelli

One of the artists considered for the New Museum’s The Generational: Younger Than Jesus (all of the nominees are listed in the exhibition’s telephone-book-thick supplemental compendium, Younger Than Jesus: Artist Directory), is Ishmael Randall Weeks, who was born in Cusco, Peru, in 1976.

Ishmael Randall Weeks, “Primed” (2009). 2 parts, cut and painted rubber boats and staples. Height: 96˝; Installation dimensions variable. Courtesy of Eleven Rivington, New York.

Letter From SEGOVIA

By Karen Schiff

In January, a major exhibition of art from the Wynn Kramarsky Collection, New York, New Drawings: 1946-2007, opened at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Esteban Vicente in Segovia, Spain.

Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Esteban Vicente

Letter From LONDON

By Sherman Sam

It seems as if this spring is a moment for sculpture, and, in particular, women sculptors. Following a two-year refurbishment, the Whitechapel Gallery is back with two bold women; a stunning Isa Genzken survey and a yearlong commission by the Polish-born 2008 Turner Prize nominee, Goshka Macuga.

Rebecca Warren, Installation view, Serpentine Gallery, London (10 March – 19 April, 2009). Left to right: The Mechanic, 2000; Cube, 2006
© 2009 Rebecca Warren. Photograph: Jerry Hardman-Jones. Courtesy of Serpentine Gallery.

Richard Allen Morris, Morris Code, works from 1957-2007

By Kara L. Rooney

John Baldessari may have canonized the phrase, “I will not make any more boring art,” but it is his self-taught friend and contemporary, Richard Allen Morris, who lives out the infamous dictum.

Richard Allen Morris, “Jay” (1969). Acrylic on canvas, 60 × 24 in (152.4 × 60.96 cm). Courtesy of Peter Blum Gallery, New York.

Jene Highsten, Lines in Space

By Joan Waltemath

Since I first saw them a few weeks ago at Björn Ressle Gallery, a series of unusual ink on photograph ‘drawings’ have lingered in my mind.