Art created during a crisis can be a powerful catharsis for both artist and audience. Chinese American Martin Wong (1946-1999) once said, “Everything I paint is within four blocks of where I live.” The California transplant moved to New York’s Lower East Side and...
Unlike London, New York galleries are open for business. After my first Covid jab last week, a wave of cautious optimism motivated me to hit the frigid downtown streets. Luckily, this gallery field trip coincided with a dear friend’s much-heralded solo show, an...
As museums and galleries open to eager viewers, I took the easy way out and have only ventured to walking distance galleries. Luckily, this limited geography includes four stellar downtown shows. Two are young women having their first NYC solo shows, and the other...
A weird and interesting dichotomy of two painters who share neither age, gender, race or subject matter are united by passionate painting and masterful brushwork. Peter Saul, at 85 is having his first-ever NYC retrospective show, filling two floors of the New Museum...
Ilka Scobie takes a look at the first New York exhibitions for 2020 and discovers a few surprises along the way. Abortion Is Normal Eva Presenhuber Arsenal Contemporary until Feb 1 Top Photo Detail Laurie Simmons Mother/Nursery 1976 Photo: Luigi Cazzaniga I did not...
“I had an idea in the late sixties, like putting my poems on matchboxes. I wanted to do poems on marble. I was a poet, but not in the art world. Five years ago, Jean de Loisy asked twelve artists to do things at Chateau de Versailles, outside of Paris. He specifically...
“I want to be my own connection to America,” Amy Sherald tells the rapt audience, at her spectacular inaugural show at Hauser & Wirth. The compelling portrait show depicts youngish people who pop from their monochromatic backgrounds. I have the power to create...
The Whitney Biennial 2019 is America’s oldest survey of contemporary art. Now in its 79th edition, this year's event opened as the stock market began to sink. Of the seventy-five artists represented, (three quarters under the age of 40) many live in Brooklyn These...
Self-taught artist and avant-garde predecessor to the Arte Povera movement, Piero Manzoni was born to an aristocratic family in Soncino, Italy in 1933. His singular non-conformist creativity blossomed during Italy’s post-war boom years of consumerism and communism....