The Observer has learned from a source who spoke on condition of anonymity that Gagosian Gallery will present an exhibition of Bob Dylan’s paintings in New York in September.
Artnet reported this morning that the gallery has added Mr. Read More
Claustrophobia isn’t quite the right word when the tunnels go on forever. Using the endless and endlessly unwelcoming tiled surfaces of the New York City underground, George Tooker’s painting Subway gets at a dread that seems, despite its broad resonance, particular to the year in which it was painted, 1950.
A woman in a red Read More
Rising art star Josh Smith, famous for painting his name over and over, obsessively, on abstract canvases, has a well-considered strategy for success. “The best thing I could do for myself would be to not work. Just go to more cocktail parties and smile more. Go to more fashion shows,” he said.
Arrogant? Sure. Wrong? Read More
What do you say to a naked lady?
If you’re one of this bunch: “For God’s sake, hold the pose.”
I was at a lunch with members of a midtown sketch club, right after they had spent about three hours drawing a live nude (female, as I found out in my reporting, they almost always Read More
Fifth Avenue always connotes money, but stories of fortunes lost are now in the air, and as if on cue Rembrandt is on at the Frick. In fact the New York Rembrandt is there, Self-Portrait (1658), the largest of his signature self-portraits, painted two years after his infamous bankruptcy, returned home to the mansion’s Oval Read More
Wei Dong comes from a context of Socialist Realism, and his painting, while far more elegant, still has the casual accuracy and discreet lean toward mannerism of a propaganda poster. But his subject matter ascends to modes of reality unlikely to be recognized by materialist critics. His “New Paintings” at Nicholas Robinson are full of Read More
It’s fitting that Ellsworth Kelly looks like a mathematician. Poised, appearing younger, easily, than his 87 years, dressed as sharply as the lines that cut his steel and aluminum sculptures, he has a kind of preppie geometry. The black-eyeglass-wearing acolytes who flanked him at his Matthew Marks Gallery opening did a little nerd dance at Read More
In 2003, artist David Hammons presented “Which Mike Would You Like to Be Like,” three vintage microphones standing alone in a room, representing three Michaels: Jackson, Tyson and Jordan. It was an ironic commentary on role models for African-Americans, a funny play on words, a great pun, all of the above; that’s the magic we’ve Read More
Robin Williams, in her first solo show, “Rescue Party,” at PPOW Gallery, paints flowers, cabbages, bunnies and a cow. She also paints adolescents and figures in bony, epicene, indeterminate childhood who gaze out of surreal scenes with expressions of resignation that fall somewhere between a soldier’s and a circus freak’s. Her colors are broadly schematized Read More
There is a long and honorable tradition of eateries and watering holes where artists can settle their checks with their work. And there is about to be another. Francesca Gavin, art curator for the London-based Soho House brand of private clubs, is heading here to amass a collection for the New York branch, bar tabs Read More
