Haberarts

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11/18/11--05:55: On the Rocks (chan 1624076)

I confess: when I think of rocks in art, I think first not of the breathtaking canyons welcoming the Hudson River School to an expanding America. I think not of a Renaissance painter’s artfully sculpted stone—or the slope that, for Giotto, carries even the grief of angels to the Pietà. Yes, I know that a [...]


11/21/11--05:57: Old-Fashioned New Images (chan 1624076)

Lily Ludlow might have turned her dealer into a tailor or dress shop from nearly a century ago. It only makes sense so close to Orchard Street—or, fittingly enough, Ludlow Street. So what if now one can buy mostly cheap socks and expensive art? So what if the space now nestles instead between offices in [...]


11/23/11--06:19: Revolution and Romanticism (chan 1624076)

In 1795, the greatest painter in France barely escaped the guillotine. No, not in the Reign of Terror, but in seeing an end to it—and it is the subject of a longer review, in my latest upload. (A related review asks whether Pablo Picasso truly drew like and drew on French tradition.) Not every artist [...]


11/25/11--06:07: Meta Man (chan 1624076)

Matthew Brannon conceives of Gentleman’s Relish as a mystery, a play, an exercise in design, and incidentally a work of art. Of course, each of those has more than one meaning all by itself, and all of them apply. They also just happen to contradict or exclude one another, and (to confuse you further) that [...]


11/28/11--06:25: Text, Paper, and Mylar (chan 1624076)

I promised last time to keep you posted as I reshuffle some reviews on this site. While it took a lot of rewrite, not to mention a heck of a lot of links to catch between my pages, it allowed more focused attention on several artists. It also reminded me of my shortcomings—and the Web’s [...]


11/30/11--05:07: Few Cubes, Less Anarchy (chan 1624076)

I came to “David Smith: Cubes and Anarchy” expecting a few more cubes and a lot more anarchy. One finds instead loops and planes, a great deal of empty space, and a dream of European Modernism. The Whitney wants to make a case for Smith’s Cubi, from 1963 and 1964, with just three of them. [...]


12/02/11--04:51: Cubes, Gods, and Modernists (chan 1624076)

Then again, to pick up from last time, one could believe all the more in Smith’s knowledge of art history. A title, Zig, puns on zigzag and ziggurat, like a comic strip for Mesopotamian deities. Which is it, then—Pop Art or history? “David Smith: Cubes and Anarchy” comes down firmly on the side of the [...]


12/05/11--05:59: Drawing in Wire (chan 1624076)

In 1950, an artist strung a network of wire across a makeshift frame. It has no pretense of permanence or perfection. Little is welded, much less carved. The frame consists of four slats of the same copper color, and the wire loops about it simply to stay put. The weave spreads loosely but thoroughly, like [...]


12/07/11--06:10: The Seven Ages of Chelsea (chan 1624076)

I keep wanting to lend Jim Hodges some dignity, honest. His dealer certainly does. He gets two of the largest spaces in Chelsea, through December 23, for work weighing goodness knows how much, hauled goodness knows how many miles. Barbara Gladstone even jackhammered a gaping hole for him through rock-solid flooring and, I imagine, Manhattan [...]


12/09/11--05:55: Foundations (chan 1624076)

I like her photographs as they are, honest, but Leslie Hewitt wants something more. She wants what her show calls “Blue Skies, Warm Sunlight.” She wants not just a moment in time, but its “structural foundation.” She wants the passage of time itself. That sounds like, well, a rather tall order. As articulated in the [...]


12/12/11--06:09: A Passage to India (chan 1624076)

I hold myself to high standards, so let me promise something. I shall not review “Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India,” at the Metropolitan Museum through January 8, any more than I can review the history of Islamic art. Of course, that means I also had to see it, and so should you. [...]


12/14/11--05:52: From Peace to Discovery (chan 1624076)

What one thinks of the new Islamic wing at the Met, which opened November 1, naturally depends on what one thought of the old one. Clear, bright, airy, and open, it has to come as a joy to anyone who remembers a dreary, dark, forbidding maze. Larger in area and scope, from Spain to Pakistan [...]


12/16/11--05:54: He Led Three Lives (chan 1624076)

One could imagine friends just having fun together—or just one man trying on roles. In closeup he is louring, pouting, smoking, weary, or downright clean-cut. He lies aimlessly, on the floor or in the woods. He dances naked and breaks the surf at Fire Island. One under the drill, eyes as wide open as his [...]


12/19/11--05:28: Friends in Need (chan 1624076)

As a postscript to last time, I have fleshed out Peter Hujar’s “Three Lives” with the lives of others. And there is more to their lives than what Julia Kristeva, the philosopher and psychoanalyst, called abjection.The reviews of retrospectives of Paul Thek (this year) and David Wojnarowicz (in 1999) also first appeared in this space, [...]


12/21/11--05:55: Family Vacation (chan 1624076)

Everyone knows, at least from film comedy, the terrors of a family vacation—but more often than not it comes down to one thing. The kids remember the thrills, while the parents remember the lines. The generation gap gives new meaning to “relational esthetics.” How much one enjoys Carsten Höller may depend on whether one goes [...]


12/23/11--05:57: Bleak December’s Winds (chan 1624076)

I have to hand it to Howie Chen. Whatever I think about group shows to tide galleries over those long, dark nights, at least he is honest about it. He calls the show, at Mitchell-Innes & Nash through January 21, simply “December.” Never mind that most people will stumble into it only after the holidays. [...]


12/26/11--05:52: Destroyer of Worlds (chan 1624076)

With the holidays, allow me almost a day off. Well, perhaps just another word like last time for those dark December days and nights. Is the solstice “auspicious,” with the promise of lengthening days, or terrifying? An eastern tradition says much the same thing about the subject for U-Ram Choe at the Asia Society. (It [...]


12/28/11--05:56: Small Mercies (chan 1624076)

I shall have no ten-best list this year (unlike in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010). It speaks to the state of the art, which is no longer about the canon or the next big thing. It is not even about a critique of the canon or the next big thing. Anything goes, but not by [...]


12/30/11--05:53: The Countdown Continues (chan 1624076)

6. Reeducation. To pick up the year in review from last time, all that came for me as another kind of small mercy, an education in what I thought I disliked. I still dislike both Ryan Trecartin and Laurel Nakadate, but their shows at PS1 had to upset my idea of Gen Y art. In [...]


01/02/12--05:51: 9/11: Before and After (chan 1624076)

“September 11” opened on the tenth anniversary of the fall of the twin towers, but something does not appear in its name. That is not a matter of style. The show’s entrance wall speaks plainly enough of “9/11″ and “the attacks,” but the title makes a statement, too. This is not simply the art of [...]