#artreview – Page 2

November 22, 2024December 7, 2024

Llyn Foulkes: The Untied State of America

A person with a face cut out of paper Description automatically generated — Pat, 2020. Pigment print, oil, acrylic, red oak, and found objects on wood. 31 3/8 x 25 3/8 x 1 7/8 inches

Llyn Foulkes is a 90-year-old painter, jazz musician, troublemaker and visionary. After making a splash entrée on the American art scene in 1961, he hopscotched around the artworld, changing genres and styles as his restless mind embraced new ideas. He has been “consistently inconsistent” (from his website), wonderful for an artist, but not always strategic for a career. The commercial art world can be somewhat conservative, preferring that an artist find a groove and stick to it. As a result, though brilliant, Foulkes has not yet achieved the wide recognition that he deserves.

November 18, 2024December 7, 2024

Aggregate at Studio 9D

Installation view of Bradley Milligan’s *Scrimmage*, 2023, tinted joint compound, scrap wood, used drop cloth, oil on panel, cotton thread, hardware. 79 x 49 x 51 inches; *Down the River*, tinted joint compound, scrap wood, automotive polish, hardware. 85 x 71 x 5 inches

In the three person show Aggregate at Studio 9D, artists Sammy Bennett, Bradley Milligan, and James Bertucci channel New York streetscapes and detritus to relay an earnest and affecting impression of the city. Bertucci’s trompe l’oeil paintings, Bennett’s fabric installation, and Milligan’s rugged sculptures overlap in a reverence for craftsmanship. Labor and construction are this show’s subject and, in many ways, its medium. In its use of material and representation Aggregate is boldly literal in its translation of the city’s chaos and beauty.

November 12, 2024November 12, 2024

Running Line: Noga Yudkovik Etzioni at FORMah Gallery

A group of wooden objects on a white floor

Description automatically generated — Noga Yudkovik-Etzioni, Running Line, detail

In Running Line, on view at FORMah gallery, objects stripped of function take on new roles: charged, amorphous, and poetic. Israeli artist Noga Yudkovik-Etzioni creates a space where memory, material, and form converge through elongated installations on the floor and a series of small wall-mounted paper-based reliefs

October 11, 2024October 10, 2024

Gary Petersen: The Shape of Walking at McKenzie Fine Art

*Garden of Music (after Bob Thompson),* 2024, acrylic and oil on canvas, 54” x 94”

For artists working within the realm of geometric abstraction, understanding the weight of art history is vital. The hard-edge lines, a keen understanding of color theory, and structured patterns—all form part of a visual language that has evolved over a century. Artists today, when approaching geometric abstraction, face a unique tension. On the one hand, they inherit the legacy of giants such as Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Josef Albers, and Kazimir Malevich, whose works laid the foundation for what we understand as “geometric art.” On the other hand, the question looms large: How does one continue to make geometric abstraction in 2024?

June 29, 2024June 29, 2024

Art Spiel Picks: Chelsea Exhibitions for July 2024

HIGHLIGHTS

Crossings, partial Installation view at Kasmin, photo by Etty Yaniv

Chelsea has multiple exciting shows this summer, ranging from large group shows to solo retrospectives. We will highlight three shows with different curatorial premises. The Swimmer, a large-scale group show sprawling over the 9th and 10th floors of the FLAG Art Foundation, centers around the narrative of John Cheever’s short story from 1964, presenting works that dig into its themes and imagery. Another impressive large-scale group show surveys the increasing presence of weaving, textiles, and embroidery in contemporary art, featuring an international and intergenerational group of artists whose works push the boundaries of these traditional mediums. Lastly, at Pretzel, there is a beautifully curated retrospective of Malcolm Morley, offering a glimpse into the fascinating work of the late artist (1931–2018).

June 20, 2024June 19, 2024

Nexus, Echoes, and Connections – Stefano Caimi, Rachel Frank, Gayoung Jun, Kirstin Lamb at SARAHCROWN Gallery

Nexus, Echoes, and Connections, Installation Shot 2, Courtesy SARAHCROWN NY

The second-floor Sarah Crown Gallery in Tribeca features a group exhibition with work by Stefano Caimi, Rachel Frank, Gayoung Jun, and Kirstin Lamb. The show immediately draws viewers in as 3 drawings by Gayoung Jun grasp the eye with striking blue tones and dual circular shapes that seem to be moving in the optical illusion. The work is only made more impressive upon closer inspection as the eye reveals the minor flaws of the hand.

June 9, 2024June 9, 2024

The Philosophy of Physical Existence at Tutu Gallery

A room with a fireplace and a rug

Description automatically generated

Installation view of Gentle Mist group exhibition at the Tutu Gallery, Photo Credit: Yulin Gu and Yuhan Shen

The exhibition titled Gentle Mist at the Tutu Gallery in Brooklyn could be mistaken for primarily being idea-driven, in which case the ideas precede artwork production, along the lines of artists working with clarity of vision, such as the Conceptual artist Sol Lewitt and the Minimalist artists Tony Smith and Robert Morris. However, upon closer examination of the works by this group of New York and Baltimore artists, we realize that the makers of the art objects are more intuitively engaged with their art. There is a great deal of trial and error and improvisation in the creative process, and the ideation and production processes integrate up into a complex maneuver or dance.

June 7, 2024June 9, 2024

Lubaina Himid- Street Sellers at Greene Naftali

A painting of a person holding a rope

Description automatically generated — Posture Master- 2023. Acrylic on canvas. 96 x 72

Rarely has there been a group of people as uniformly elegant and graceful as those who inhabit Lubaina Himid’s paintings, currently on view at Greene Naftali in Chelsea. Entitled Street Sellers, Himid has created a group of large, figurative paintings that pulse with vibrant color and life. These graceful, solo figures proudly present their wares to us–eggs, birds, musical instruments, and fish, as they move through the landscape.

March 6, 2024March 6, 2024

Glean, Glow, Glam – Denise Treizman at Coral Springs Museum

“Ring around the rosie”, 2020-2024. | Painted vinyl, foam, styrofoam, inflatable pool, tubing, balls, wooden rocker, plexiglass, slinky, fabric, painted PVC pipe tube, rope, clamp, google balls. Photo credits: Rafael Nuñez

Every time I stumble into Denise Treizman’s work—and I do literally mean stumble: it was at an Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Open Studios Night back in 2017 when I almost walked into a pile of glitter on the floor of her then-studio and first fell heels-over-head in love with her creations—I am floored (I’m so sorry) with the particular joy that some absurdism-enthusiasts experience when presented with hilarious, kawaii, unexpected, nonessential, and in my case: sparkly, things.

February 7, 2024February 7, 2024

Small Myriad: Sharon Horvath at Bookstein Projects

Installation view, detail, photo courtesy of Etty Yaniv

Sharon Horvath’s paintings in Small Myriad, her current exhibition at Bookstein Projects, create a sense of an alluring universe where dazzling colors, interflowing shapes, and tactile surfaces merge, meander, and as a group form an enigmatic universe unified by a mysterious code. Horvath’s spiraling lines and patterned forms create ebbing and flowing movements echoing Theodor Schwenk’s anthroposophical approach to the unifying principle of all movement and form. In his book Sensitive Chaos: The Creation of Flowing Forms in Water and Air, Schwenk posits that water movements reveal fundamental, archetypal patterns in natural and human-made environments. This deeper order finds resonance in Horvath’s paintings, but simultaneously, her imagery and use of collage also lean toward the enigmatic, paradoxical, and absurd.