Anna Tome

Anna Tome is an Art Editor for the Brooklyn Rail.

Ebecho Muslimova is a Russian-born, New York-based artist known for ever-evolving depictions of her illustrated character, Fatebe (Fah-tee-bee), who overflows with physicality and impropriety, free of the anxieties of a socially conscious being.
Portrait of Ebecho Muslimova, pencil on paper by Phong H. Bui.
A vase of orange marigolds adorns a ledge at the entrance of Alex Da Corte’s second solo show at Karma. Like the artist’s work, this little detail cloaks meaning in layers of wit. The marigolds’ striking golden hue symbolizes both fortune and grief. Known for captivating films and installations that probe popular American culture, Da Corte is acutely sensitive to the myriad signifying effects of both color and cultural imagery and uses them to penetrate our individual experiences and collective associations.
Alex Da Corte, The Pied Piper, 2019. Neoprene, EPS foam, upholstery foam, staples, thread, polyester fiber, epoxy clay, MDF, plywood, 120 x 120 x 6 1/2 inches. Courtesy the artist and Karma, New York.
Alberto Burri: The Trauma of Painting chronicles the career of Italian doctor, prisoner of war, and artist Alberto Burri.
Alberto Burri, Rosso plastica (Red Plastic), 1961. Plastic (PVC), acrylic, and combustion on plastic (PE) and black fabric, 142 x 153 cm. © Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, Città di Castello/2015 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome. Photo: Massimo Napoli, Rome, courtesy Modern Art Foundation.
There are countless under-recognized—but nonetheless exceptional—artists working quietly away in our midst here in New York: Nancy Haynes is choice among them.
Nancy Haynes, anamolies and non sequiturs (2015). Installation shot. Courtesy of Regina Rex.
Etel Adnan and Simone Fattal met in Beirut in the 1970s. They have since lived between Paris, Beirut, and northern California, working in different media—Adnan is a poet and painter while Fattal is a sculptor and the founder and publisher of the Post-Apollo Press—to explore and reconfigure notions of history, politics, freedom, and feminism.
Etel Adnan, "Untitled," circa 2000. Oil on canvas, 9 × 12 ̋. Courtesy the artist and Callicoon Fine Arts, NY.
On view at Paul Kasmin this past June was the under-represented Belarusian master Chaim Soutine.  Life in Death: Still Lifes and Select Masterworks of Chaim Soutine featured 16 paintings of dead animals, landscapes, and a few portraits, giving a limited but nuanced look into the painter’s oeuvre.
Chaim Soutine, "Two Pheasants on a Table," c. 1926. Oil on canvas, 19 3/4 x 25 1/2". Private Collection.
In Raft of the Medusa, all three floors of Skarstedt’s townhouse-turned-gallery exhibit Martin Kippenberger’s fervent study of Theodore Gericault’s infamous 1819 painting, occasioned through a series of photographs, sketches, lithographs, paintings, and even a rug.
Martin Kippenberger, “Untitled” (from the series The Raft of Medusa), 1996. Oil on canvas, 78.74 x 94.49 inches. Copyright: Estate Martin Kippenberger, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Koln.
For Marian, a group show at FiveMyles* in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is a posthumous homage to the Sculpture Center’s late director, Marion Griffiths.
Caephas Stubbs, Shame Vividly Replays Haunting Experiences of Failure, Pain, and Disappointment, 2014. Courtesy of FiveMyles and Michael Britto.
Despite the portrayal of such extreme emotion, the works are not in the least literal or heavy-handed. Rather, they seem to have been constructed this way, like much of Neshat’s work, to translate a cultural experience we in the West naturally misunderstand.
Shirin Neshat, "Ahmed (from "Our House Is on Fire")", 2013. Digital C-print and ink. 621/8 × 401/4 ̋. Courtesy of Gladstone Gallery.

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