Jurriaan Benschop
Maria Lassnig
Capitain Petzel
June 2013
The scenes in Maria Lassnig’s paintings depict physical discomfort and friction but are rendered in a palette of bright hues that cause each to seem strikingly jocund. This ambiguity makes these works intriguing—attractive and unpleasant… READ ON
PICKS
Norbert Bisky
May 2013
When he was a younger artist, Norbert Bisky felt he had to deal with his childhood years in what was then still East Germany, or, as he told me recently, to “paint the GDR out of my soul.” His later work demonstrates a broader concern … READ ON
IN PRINT May 2013 [TOC]
Jorge Queiroz
April 2013
While many artists like to claim that the process is the most important part of their work, this assertion all too often becomes an excuse to disregard its visual quality. For Jorge Queiroz, however, process is the key to the visual power of… READ ON
IN PRINT April 2013 [TOC]
“Male Nudes—Female Desires”
Galerie Tanja Wagner
February 2013
In this exhibition four artists—Nina Hoffman, Jen Davis, Lina Scheynius, Paula Winkler—contribute photographs that probe sensuality and sexuality as a way to explore what it means for young women today to look at men, specifically naked… READ ON
PICKS
Arlene Shechet
February 2013
One could call it ironic that during the opening of Arlene Shechet’s exhibition at Nature Morte, one of the porcelain sculptures on view, Shadow Box (all works 2012) was accidentally broken by a visitor. Shechet decided to leave the piece—now… READ ON
IN PRINT February 2013 [TOC]
Thomas Florschuetz
January 2013
For his exhibition “Durchsicht” (Vista), Thomas Florschuetz selected seven photographs from several different series, yet perspective played a central role in all of them. Also, many involved a tension between a monumental aesthetic and… READ ON
IN PRINT January 2013 [TOC]
R. B. Kitaj
Jewish Museum Berlin
November 2012
R. B. Kitaj once remarked that as a painter he was a “montagist,” just like Walter Benjamin was in his writings—like the theorist, the artist loved to build up a work from fragments and to allow inconclusive “failures.” This is … READ ON
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Adriana Varejão
Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM)
November 2012
When Rio de Janeiro–based artist Adriana Varejão cuts openings in a canvas, one can see under the surface a sculptured mass of blood and organs, made of polyurethane and painted with oil; it is as if the painting were undergoing surgery.… READ ON
PICKS
Thomas Scheibitz
Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK)
November 2012
“My work has to be on the edge of an invention,” Thomas Scheibitz once remarked, pointing to the fact that you can’t really invent something as a painter nowadays. But you might still find something moving through existing imagery. In… READ ON
PICKS
Tomasz Kowalski
October 2012
The first impression is always one of freedom: Tomasz Kowalski flits—almost carelessly, you might say—between his personal imagination and echoes of familiar modernist styles. In the crowded landscape of contemporary painting, it is remarkable… READ ON