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We saw these beautiful and seemingly effortless paintings in a group show at Tracy Williams gallery.
Sometimes it’s enough just to look and love.
Tag: abstract
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Andrea Belag’s luminous beauties
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Two to see by Sunday: Ryan Wallace at Cooper Cole and Maggie Groat at ESP
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This weekend is your last chance to see two great exhibitions in Toronto, just around the corner from each other in the West End. At Cooper Cole, new work by Ryan Wallace rewards close inspection, as the deceptively simple compositions give way to a richly detailed surface rendered with layers, colours, and textures of oil paint, enamel, ink, graphite, PVA, mylar, artist tape, and cut paper. -
The good, the bad, and the ugly: A studio visit with Niall McClelland
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Last year we were drawn in by Niall McClelland’s first solo show at Clint Roenisch gallery, for which he produced mainly paper and fabric-based works which had been folded and re-folded, inked, stained, bleached, and otherwise pushed around and abused. Unfolded, shaken out, and hung or draped to various degrees of looseness, they wore their cracks, folds, and stains with a hard-won pride and stark material beauty.Last night we had the pleasure of visiting McClelland’s studio with the Ministry of Artistic Affairs. Speaking on the surprises and discoveries he has made in the course of rolling paint onto cheap dropcloths or spraying it over smashed light bulbs among other things, McClelland has developed a process-oriented way of making which is simultaneously rooted in the physical (experiments with materials, actions, and the effects of things like time, weather, friction and force) and the philosophical (engaging intuition, editing, and a constant questioning of when something is good, or right, or finished, and what ultimately qualifies as art and not just someone else’s trash, or vice versa).
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CollisionExhibition: accrochage at Miguel Abreu
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Intrigued by a recent Blake Gopnik post (the one led off by his irresistible tweet: “Pieter Schoolwerth slices and dices Caravaggio”), we took a closer look at the group show in which Schoolwerth’s fascinating painting, Portrait of ‘The Supper At Emmaus’ (after Caravaggio) is featured. Titled accrochage, a French word with multiple meanings encompassing small collisions, encounters, or hangings of the exhibition sort, the show is positioned simply as “an installation of recent works by gallery artists and others.”Although no explicit thematic connection is made between the works of the eleven artists in the show, the exhibition is remarkably satisfying and coherent on both visual and conceptual levels. The disparate artworks, running the materials gamut between oils and acrylics, ink and chalk, synthetic felt, steel, 6-cartridge ink dispersion on powder coated vinyl, chromogenic prints, and unadorned postage stamps stuck directly to a wall, contrast markedly with regard to process and scale, but are unified by a decisive aesthetic sensibility which is restrained yet committed in its approach to colour and composition; spare yet sumptuous in its materiality and visual effects.
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IMHO: Are not Hirst’s spots merely Rorschach inkblots made by robots?
Perhaps it’s who we follow, but our news feed over much of the past week seems to have been Occupied by all things Damien. (Okay there were some bits on SOPA and the Bushwick gallery scene in there as well, but you get the point.) Aside from the sheer bonanza of articles employing spot-related puns in their titles, Gagosian’s worldwide exhibition of Hirst’s paintings has yielded such a polarized response from artists and critics that each new review seems to be a reaction not only to the paintings themselves, but also to the many reviews that have come before. It has made for some unexpectedly fascinating psychological reading, despite our best efforts at studiously avoiding the whole throwdown.
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More tantric drawings to stir your soul
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Back at the beginning of November we posted on these exquisite tantric drawings in relationship to recent work by Fred Tomaselli. Now we’ve just become aware that a stunning new book on these contemporary abstract drawings was coincidentally released just days before our post, and it contains many more examples than were included in the original Drawing Center show and publication from 2004–2005. -
Artists’ sketchbooks to surprise and inspire you
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We’re on deadline and writing our faces off at the moment, but everyone’s gotta eat, right? This little glimpse into the sketchbooks of artists including Andy Warhol, Devendra Banhart, and Henri Matisse makes for inspiring (and satisfying) lunchtime viewing. We took a shine to Louise Bourgeois’ and Richard Serra’s pages, and were delightfully surprised by Frida Kahlo and Cy Twombly. Above, a bracing exploration by Ellsworth Kelly. -
Fred Tomaselli at the 2011 Editions/Artists’ Book Fair
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Over a packed four days in New York doing research for a future show, we managed to briefly stop by the Editions/Artists’ Book Fair taking place in Chelsea this past weekend. Occupying two floors of the former Dia building on West 22nd, the fair was intimate, friendly, and filled with surprises, not least of which were the many strong showings by non-New York exhibitors such as Clay Street Press (Cincinnati), Western Editions (Chicago), and High Point Center for Printmaking (Minneapolis). We’ll profile each of these organizations separately in a series of future posts, as well as New York-based standouts Specific Object and Forth Estate. -
Willem de Kooning in New York
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What’s not to love about the net when you can hear Peter Schjeldahl talk in your ear about de Kooning in New York while drinking tea in Toronto?Hear about de Kooning’s Untitled (The Cow Jumps Over the Moon), pictured above, and other paintings selected by Schjeldahl on the New Yorker’s website. Link from there to his full review as well (paywall).