Sin City Oasis Lori Ortiz       Marlene Tseng Yu, Milky Way, 1996, Oval 120″ x 216″ (305 x 549 cm), Acrylic on canvas.           At a closing poetryreading honoring Marlene Tseng Yu’s magnificent painting exhibit at the LasVegas Art Museum, Donald Kuspit proposed a future with “islands of art…oases.”In […]

Fusion of the Oriental Mind and the Western Material: Art of Meeok Paik Sae-Kwan, Oh         Meeok Paik, Psychokinesis, Acrylic on canvas, 89.4 X 145.5 cm         The early worksof Meeok Paik contained images of nature, with vague and deliberate referencesto their sources. Paik’style=’font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana’>s approach to the nature began […]

Oppressive performances by Yael Davids Edo Dijksterhuis Yael Davids, Aquarium. Photo by Johannes Schwartz A man with his head stuckinside a filled aquarium. A girl confined in a hollowed out mattress that lookslike a quilted tomb. A boy lying on a bed with his head in a pillowcase. Theperformances of Yael Davids are certainly not […]

The Miami Cilantro – Basel Twist: Notes from the Not-So- Underground Lee Klein     Will Pappenheimer, Pome Kit, at the Miami Basel Art Fair           One can stillwitness an overly smug Jeffrey Deitch wandering out of the Delano – as if theglamour of the surround could make his personality more […]

Second State Aaron Yassin       Randy Stoltzfus, The Garden Gate, Oil on canvas, 96″x120″         The first timeI visited Randy Stoltzfus’ studio in Brooklyn it was late in theday, nearly dusk. The light level was low, particularly as the studio had onlya block of windows facing north. I began looking […]

Sumpthin Bout Dat Show at Rare Gallery uh Jim Wright’s Paintin’s at Got Me Aaron Zimmerman       Jim Wright, Fuzz Love in the Tub, 2003. Acrylic on panel, 56″ x 56″. Image courtesy of Rare Gallery.         Damn. You know, I wuz ina hills a West Ver-Gin-I-A for most a […]

e$u$ $ave$ Chicago Adam Barraclough       Gregory Shirilla, Agatha.     Gregory Shirilla, Agatha. Whether you love or loathethe paradox of such statements, it is hard to escape them. They have become apart of the American cultural dialogue. It’s not uncommon to find contemporaryart that comments on this omnipresence, so the idea of […]

Ann Hamilton’s CorpusCharles Giuliano   View from installation, Ann Hamilton, Corpus, Mass MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, December 13, 2003 through October, 2004.         Seated on thesteps of the football field sized Building 5 of Mass MoCA, we tried to get thesense and insight of a new installation by Ann Hamilton. It is […]

Chuck Close: Process and CollaborationHarriet Zinnes       Chuck Close, Self-Portrait/Pulp, 2001. Stenciled handmade paper pulp in 11 grays, 57 1/2 x 40 in, Edition of 35.     Ifit is the human face that a viewer is interested in, then the artist ChuckClose’s depiction of his own face, fascinating and inexorable, must be […]

Diversity at 450 Vivek Narayanan       Charles Hecht, Big Mumsa (The Sea Pinnacle Series), welded steel and bronze, 2003.       There were a number ofsmall works – by David Adamo, Paul Yates, Christine Krol or Rocco Alberico –and this suggested, for me, a certain level of maturity. Small works tend notto […]