Jun 23, 2022 | Contemporary, Modern
David Diao, Triptych, 1972, Acrylic on canvas, 85 x 198 inches In my previous essay, I called out auction houses and galleries for doling out credit for innovation when it serves their profit margins, in moves that essentially alter history to suit their needs. I...
Jun 15, 2022 | Contemporary, Modern
I wanted to write about this painting, but I’ve never seen it. Hedda Sterne, Third Avenue El, 1952–53, Oil and spray enamel on canvas, 40’ 3/8” x 31’ 7/8”, Collection of the Metropolitan Museum, Not on view Third Avenue El, by Hedda Sterne, was sold in October...
May 30, 2022 | Contemporary
Jack Whitten, April’s Shark, 1974, Acrylic on canvas, 72 x 52 inches Gerhard may be the Jack of all Trades but Jack was the King. In 1974 I saw an exhibition that astounded me and elicited a longing to return to painting. It was early 2018 when I finally did so. In...
Apr 18, 2022 | Contemporary
Barbara Laube, Installation at Gold Scopophilia Gallery Barbara Laube’s recent gem-like body of work, Morning Has Broken, at Gold Scopophilia Gallery, includes the artist’s most radiant and most unusual works to date. The gold-kissed paintings incorporate remnants of...
Apr 10, 2022 | Contemporary
Anselm Kiefer, The Order of the Angels (Die Ordnung der Engel), 1983/1984, Oil, emulsion, shellac, straw, and lead on canvas, 130 x 218 1/2 inches I was a high school dropout seeing modern art in a museum for the first time. Die Ordnung der Engel or The Order of...
Apr 3, 2022 | Contemporary
Marlene Dumas, The Painter, 1994, oil on canvas, 200 x 100cm In the late 1990’s I was attending art school in the U.K. on a student exchange. I was a painter then, trying to figure out what that actually meant and how I wanted to paint (while the weight of the YBA’s...