From the religious heart of the city to a center of commerce hung with Christmas bulbs, Rockefeller Center’s transformation is nearly complete.
An entity affiliated with a long-extinct church, St. Nicholas Collegiate Church, has sold the land rights to its former Rock Center site at 600 Fifth Avenue to Tishman Speyer for $165 million, according to Read More
The Glass Menagerie, which debuted on Broadway 55 years ago today, was Tennessee Williams’ first great success as a playwright. The excellent revival that opened Off Broadway on March 5 at the Laura Pels Theatre, starring Judith Ivey as a complex, human and haunting Amanda Wingfield, strips away all those intervening years of TV movies Read More
As the Whitney Biennial launches this week to the usual hyperbolic chorus of yays and nays, behind the scenes at the museum, a major change is happening. There was a new face at the Whitney’s board meeting last week. A new familiar face: Peter Norton, the software magnate, contemporary-art collector and accomplished board hopper, who Read More
The Rich Rewards of Engagement
With Dense, Demanding Work
In its own quietly determined way, the New York Studio School has become one of the city’s most significant venues for contemporary art. When I say “contemporary art,” I don’t mean the kind of soulless folderol in the
go-go galleries of West 24th Street.
To understand why the 17th-century Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1652) is an artist for our time is to realize that she was an anomaly in her own. After studying with her father, Orazio (1563-1639), a painter of considerable talent, Artemisia went on to pursue a spectacular career. The first woman to become a member of Read More
It’s the rare artist who is
able to transform kitsch into something more than what it is, and Ann Agee is
one of them. Her recent porcelain figurines, currently the subject of an
exhibition at PPOW Gallery, constitute a high-strung tribute to maternity. Taking
inspiration from children’s storybooks, folk art and the half-price sale at Read More
The sculpture of Michael Steiner, currently the subject of
an exhibition at Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, is so resolute in its rigor that
one is likely to overlook how funny it is. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but dry
and droll, deeply comical. While loyal to the tradition of Constructivism, as
well as deferential to the blunt certainties of Read More
Bill Jensen currently has an exhibition of his paintings at the Chelsea branch of the Mary Boone Gallery. Or, to pin down the billing more precisely, Ms. Boone is currently exhibiting Mr. Jensen’s paintings. The renowned dealer’s new gallery on West 24th Street it’s been open a few months now is typically Boone-ian and then Read More
A few weeks back, I buzzed through the exhibition of Tony Cragg’s new sculpture at Marian Goodman Gallery and found it worthy of not much more than that. Yet, after reading favorable notices of the show and receiving counsel-albeit qualified-from sculptor friends, I returned to Goodman and found myself genuinely perplexed by the work. Mr. Read More
Over the past 25 years, Thomas Nozkowski has established a sturdy career as an abstract painter. Sturdy, one might note, and unsensational. While his paintings are exhibited regularly, written about in art journals, and included in the collections of major museums, it can’t be said that Mr. Nozkowski is a “name” artist–and for good reason. Read More
