One of the many virtues of this exhibition is that it convincingly demonstrates its central premise: that the cross-fertilization of ideas of our three hEROS was of inestimable value to the evolution of modern art. The force of their intelligence, channeled between Europe and America from 1913 to the present, still sends shock waves to […]

Drawing is a tool for the free production of images; it can be an automatic practice. It’s a primary activity, like eating or sleeping. With a pen I can go anywhere. Everything starts with a pen and a piece of paper, and then spreads to fill up spaces. Following the outline of a figure with […]

The paintings of Tomma Abts depend upon a tense equipoise of material, and visual and temporal contradictions. The eponymous exhibition currently at the New Museum appropriately complements the concentration of its individual pieces. The show includes 15 dense, geometric abstractions, each in oil and acrylic on canvas, all of which are small (18 7/8 by […]

Hidden away in the flatlands of north Texas lies the city of Dallas, a large metropolis noteworthy now more than ever for a growing museum network with large holdings of contemporary art in the downtown arts district; it’s a hub flanked on various sides with young commercial gallery spaces. Fueled by a national interest in […]

In the early 90s, under the influence of Zen philosophy, I became interested in traditional Chinese imagery. I completed a series of oil paintings titled Short Chinese Language Schoolbook, which was the textbook for primary school in the late Qing dynasty. I used the original colors from the book but updated the subjects. The book […]

I had a dream shortly after my mother’s death. I was in a bloody underworld not unlike the chamber of horrors described in The Visions of Zosimos of Panopolis, a third century AD alchemical text. I saw my mother as a huge spider with her face reflected in its eyes, and I was on a […]

Utilizing germinal, historical, and scientific references as a conceptual base is typical of my approach to sculpting in multi-mediums. In 1969, NASA put Neil Armstrong on the moon, I read H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, and our family visited the Aztec archeological site, Temple of the Sun and Moon in Teotihuacán, Mexico. These occurrences represented […]

Despite a solid and admirable 40-year career, at the age of 68, artist Mary Heilmann is only now garnering the long over-due recognition she deserves. After an August 2007 feature in Vogue, and her unprecedented coup of scoring the November 2007 covers of both Art Forum and Art in America, the 2008 Armory Show honored […]

Marfa, Texas, a ten-hour long journey at best from the New York art capitol, has evolved into an iconic cultural pilgrimage site drawing international art seekers. A measure of incredulity has also arisen with its new popular image, as is evidenced by John Waters’ infamous tourist-poster-turned-Artforum-cover, and by the recent opening of a Prada store. […]

Something spontaneous, easy, and fresh spreads out over the work of David Ostrowski, which amuses the viewer instantly. However, this limits and encompasses the viewer from seeing the richness that lies beyond his astonishing visual offerings. One might not recognize the double meaning in evident in his images/pictures. Nonetheless, the painter attempts to recognize what […]