Ronnie Landfield’s large paintings at David Whitney repeat Poons’s interest in process, using repeated stainings so often that they are no longer read as “from the hand.” Above and below such stained areas Landfield applies paint traditionally, with hazy pastel colors above and a wide hard-edge color-band below. In bringing together such widely disparate surfaces, Landfield seems interested in both the lyrical (the stain and pastel) and the sober (the band), a blend very difficult to achieve. Landfield’s efforts are not successful, it seems to me. They tend, I find, toward the giddy and the listless.

—Jean-Louis Bourgeois