Magazine

The Kaleidoscopic Nature of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s Art

It may not be obvious to many people at first why Sunset, Sunrise, the first international retrospective of the work of Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, is being held at the Irish Mu...

Shara Hughes - Subverting Traditional Representational Landscapes

Shara Hughes makes paintings that are decidedly contemporary, and yet the artificial landscapes that she conjures evoke comparisons to a multitude of aesthetic traditions from the past. Their intu...

Sam Falls’ Abstract Shapes of Nature

Multi-disciplinary artist Sam Falls was raised in rural Vermont, one of the least populated parts of the United States. He grew up wandering his natural surroundings and marveling at the ways the ...

The Rigorous Art of Tomma Abts

Tomma Abts has managed a difficult feat: she makes paintings that are simple and straightforward that nonetheless hold the eye for long periods of time. The compositions contain a limited number ...

Visiting The Bernar Venet Foundation

French conceptual artist Bernar Venet wants you to celebrate the legacy of Yves Klein, but he also wants you to work for it. Klein would have turned 90 this year. In his memory, the gallery of the...

Ellen Carey and The World of Color in Photography

An exhibition of new work by Ellen Carey, titled Ellen Carey: Mirrors of Chance, opens at Galerie Miranda in Paris this month. The show introduces a new body of work by Carey called “Zerograms.” F...

The Concrete Utopia of the Yugoslav Architecture

Some of the most jarring images I have ever seen are on view right now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in an exhibition titled Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1...

A Word on the International Klein Blue

Had he not died of a heart attack at age 34, Yves Klein would have turned 90 this year. In celebration of this would-be milestone, Blenheim Palace in the UK is currently exhibiting more than 50 Kl...

Motherhood, Maternity, Femaleness, Gender - Judy Chicago’s Birth Project

Between the years 1980 and 1985, Judy Chicago enlisted more than 150 needleworkers to collaborate with her on the creation of dozens of large-scale tapestries that formed the basis for a monumenta...

A Museum in Tasmania Gathers the Founders of the Zero Art Movement

Australian art collector and gambling magnate David Walsh recently opened a landmark exhibition of the Zero art movement at his Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, Tasmania. Titled ZERO, t...

Carlos Cruz-Diez - The Star of Phillips’ Summer Exhibition

Carlos Cruz-Diez is easily one of the most intriguing artists in the world today. For seven decades, he has been fascinating eyes and blowing minds with his optical and kinetic artworks, which exp...

Most Notable Representatives of African Fabric Art at Sean Kelly

A new exhibition of African fabric art at Sean Kelly New York, titled Ravelled Threads, has got my mind buzzing with fascination. I confess that I love any chance to see the methods abstract artis...

The Importance of Anni Albers’ Textiles. At Tate Modern

In October of 2018, in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus, the Tate Modern in London will present the first-ever retrospective of the work of Anni Albers to be he...

Sam Gilliam’s Music of Color in Basel

In conjunction with the start of Art Basel 2018, the Kunstmuseum Basel recently opened what is being called the first European solo exhibition ever of the work of American abstract artist Sam Gill...

Between Image and Object - Landon Metz at von Bartha

Over the past half decade or so, Brooklyn-based artist Landon Metz has been gravitating towards an aesthetic position that speaks to the notion of repetition. Using a method borrowed from Helen Fr...

Space is Silence. Zao Wou-Ki in Paris After Fifteen Years

Inspired by encountering the early abstract work of his new friend, the Chinese-born painter Zao Wou-Ki, the Belgian-born poet and artist Henri Michaux once declared, “Space is silence.” That poet...

NGV’s Special Bond with Artist Robert Hunter, on View in Melbourne

By the time Australian painter Robert Hunter died in 2014 he had earned an international profile, and was considered by many to be the most influential abstract artist in Australia. It was an amaz...

Mary Corse: A Survey in Light at The Whitney

A major retrospective of the career of Mary Corse is on view this summer at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Titled Mary Corse: A Survey in Light, the exhibition touches on many of ...

Holding Color, Material, and Light - Suzan Frecon at David Zwirner

Suzan Frecon is a master of nuance. She recently opened her first ever solo exhibition in Asia, at the Hong Kong location of David Zwirner gallery. The exhibition itself is subtle—half a dozen pai...

No Boundary Between Reality and Imagination - Katharina Grosse at the Gagosian

Katharina Grosse is perhaps the most honest artist working today. I say that because, when asked by an Art21 documentary film crew why she does the kind of work that she does, Grosse answered, “I ...

Frank Auerbach’s Landscapes and Portraits in New York

A compact and elegant show of paintings by the great British painter Frank Auerbach is currently on view at Timothy Taylor New York. Frank Auerbach: Landscapes and Portraits examines multiple deca...

Clare Rojas’ New Solo Show Egret Merges Abstraction and Story

In Egret, her new solo exhibition at Kavi Gupta gallery in Chicago, Clare Rojas challenges one of the basic misconceptions about abstract art—that non-objective images cannot tell stories. The ter...

Female Artists in the Contemporary Reductive Art in an Exhibition in Kyiv

More than 100 years after it was painted, “Black Square” (1915), by Kasimir Malevich, remains one of the most influential works in the history of abstract reductive art. With this painting, as wit...

Rosemarie Castoro, Lydia Okumura and Wanda Czelkowska in the Land of Lads, Land of Lashes

This June, the London Ely House location of Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac will open what promises to be among the most impactful gallery exhibitions of the summer. Land of Lads, Land of Lashes will juxt...

Tal R's "This is Not Detroit" at MOCAD

On 11 May, a new exhibition of work by the Israel-born Danish painter Tal Rosenzweig, known professionally as Tal R, opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. The show has me confused and ...

Udo Zembok Creates an Open Space in France

Udo Zembok has been working with glass as an artistic medium since 1976. Zembok sees glass not only as a physical material, but as something more—he sees it as a metaphysical intermediary between ...

100 Years of Art and Abstract Photography at Tate

The conversation around abstract photography has gotten quite interesting in recent decades as digital photography and photo manipulation has become ubiquitous. Now a new exhibition opening in May...

A Spotlight on Clinton Hill at Frieze New York

A solo exhibition of the work of Clinton Hill was one of the most buzzed about presentations at the 2018 Frieze Fair in New York, though many who saw it had to confess they had never heard the nam...

10 Textile Pieces from the Sheila Hicks Exhibition at Centre Pompidou Paris

As a major Sheila Hicks retrospective at Centre Pompidou in Paris comes to an end this week, we are reminded once again of the sheer power of the oeuvre this influential artist has created, and of...

Groundbreaking Abstract Female Artists on View in London

Anyone interested in the topic of abstract female artists simply must try to get to London sometime in the next month. The exhibition Surface Work, which is taking place concurrently at Victoria M...

At Centre Pompidou, Artists from the People's Art School Vitebsk

When recounting Modernist art history it is tempting to focus only on Paris, since most 20th Century innovators from everywhere else in the world eventually came to that city. But the story of Mod...

Three Chinese Artists Wed the East with the West in New York

A revelatory exhibition of recent Chinese abstract art is currently on view at Boers-Li Gallery in New York. Featuring the work of three artists—Wu Dayu, Yu Youhan, and Zhang Wei—Brush and Beyond ...

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art Honors Abstract Expressionist Sculptor Herbert Ferber

Herbert Ferber was an enigma. He was one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century, and yet most people today have never heard of him. Ferber hobnobbed with the most famous of the famous...

Howardena Pindell - Finally in the Spotlight

Two concurrent Howardena Pindell exhibitions recently opened in Chicago—one, a complete retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago; the other, at Document Space, presents an in-...

Andy Woll’s 150 Paintings of Mount Wilson

Western Wear, a solo exhibition of the work of Andy Woll on view at Denny Gallery in New York through 25 March, could be the basis for a masters course in art criticism. Objectively, it mostly fea...

Kupka, Pioneer of Abstraction, At Grand Palais

František Kupka thought of his artworks as organisms. As material objects, they came into being as the result of natural processes. Those processes included the ecological systems that led to the ...

Loie Hollowell Debuts in Asia with New Abstract Artworks

Loie Hollowell has tapped into something powerful. She sold out her first solo exhibition at Pace Gallery Palo Alto in 2017. Now her second solo show, Loie Hollowell: Switchback, opening on 26 Mar...

Inside - And Outside - Ellsworth Kelly’s Pavilion in Austin

A new destination for art pilgrims has just been added to the American Southwest—Ellsworth Kelly: Austin. Located on the grounds of the Blanton Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Tex...

In Dubai, A Show Celebrating Masters of Modern Indian Art

An exhibition currently on view in Dubai offers a rare glimpse at some of the major voices of Indian Modern art. It shines a light on a regional history that is vast and complex; one that has some...

Amy Sillman’s Narration versus Abstraction

The current Amy Sillman exhibition at Gladstone 64 gallery in New York has my head spinning. Titled Amy Sillman: Mostly Drawing, it features a new series of works on paper, which, as the title sug...

London to Get Re-acquainted with the Work of Elaine Sturtevant, Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac

If you are a fan of philosophy and art, mark your calendar—the work of Elaine Sturtevant, known professionally as Sturtevant, returns to London this year, with the exhibition Vice Versa. On view f...

Behind the Light and Space Movement at MCA Chicago

I credit the Light and Space Movement with first opening my mind to abstract art. In my youth, I was irritated by anything I could not understand. Abstract art only added to my confusion, and incr...

The Magic of Polly Apfelbaum’s Installations in Vienna

Polly Apfelbaum installations are oft described in mythic terms. In 2016, art critic Christopher Knight, writing for the Los Angeles Times, described the Apfelbaum installation Face (Geometry) (Na...

The Abstract Renaissance of Raoul de Keyser at SMAK

Raoul de Keyser was a master at making work that embodies the ideas of response and reduction. He responded to reality, intuitively interpreting the visual landscape of his life. But he reduced th...

ABSTRACT / NOT ABSTRACT by Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch at Art Basel Miami Beach 2017

Art Week Miami 2017 has closed, and with more than a dozen concurrent fairs and scores of pop-up shows around the city, it is safe to say no one saw everything. But despite the competition, the Je...

Mary Corse's Art in the Spotlight – Finally

It is sort of a pun to say Mary Corse is having a moment in the spotlight. This multidisciplinary artist has been working with light as an artistic medium since the 1960s. But whereas Corse has be...

UNESCO House - An Art Museum in Paris You Didn't Know About

Right in the heart of Paris, in the popular 7th arrondissement, just one and a half kilometers southeast of the Eiffel Tower, a secret art museum hides in plain sight in a place called UNESCO Hous...

Fifty Years of Pioneering Art in India - Nalini Malani at Centre Pompidou

A new exhibition at Centre Pompidou, Nalini Malani: The rebellion of the dead, retrospective 1969-2018, offers viewers a comprehensive glimpse at the work of an artist who, perhaps more than any o...