Artblog | painting

July 25, 2018 by Andrea Kirsh

David Wojnarowicz retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, painful, important, a must-see

Andrea Kirsh visits the moving retrospective of multi-disciplinary artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz, one of three exhibits on the artist currently on view in New York. Kirsh also takes a look at the catalog for this timely exhibition, which does important research that should open the door for more. The show runs through September 30th at the Whitney Museum.

July 18, 2018 by Michael Lieberman

Something for everyone in Woodmere Art Museum’s large, excellent 77th Annual

Michael is bowled over by the depth and range of works in the juried Annual show. He finds beautiful pieces, pieces with emotional uplift and works that reverberate with our current social climate of alienation, distrust and violence.

June 6, 2018 by Andrea Kirsh

“Howardena Pindell: What Remains to be Seen” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Andrea Kirsh takes a trip to Chicago and shares her experience of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s recent Howardena Pindell retrospective. Across an impressive range of media and techniques, Pindell’s work tackles race, labor and the technologies that bind. This long-overdue exhibition, which was on view at the MCA from February 24 through May 20, will travel to the Virginia Museum of Fine Art later this year before showing at Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum in early 2019.

May 7, 2018 by Andrea Kirsh

“Modern Times: American Art 1910-1950” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Andrea Kirsh visits the PMA’s new exhibition, “Modern Times: American Art 1910-1950,” which celebrates art from our museum’s own early 20th century American collection, independent of its European counterparts. As the museum prepares for the 2020 unveiling of its renovated and expanded exhibition spaces, this show whets our appetite for what’s to come.

December 16, 2017 by Andrea Kirsh

Books for the Holidays 2017, Part 2

Andrea Kirsh rounds up books for your biblio-pals who love art and are waiting for a nice art book to come their way. Here she talks about a sumptuously-illustrated book on Kandinsky; a fun book about artists’ personal libraries (with pictures!); and a book showing the Carrie Mae Weems’s seminal “Kitchen Table Series” in its entirety. Read on!

December 6, 2017 by Andrea Kirsh

Books for the Holidays 2017 Part 1

Andrea reports on four books you might consider getting for the bibliophile/art-loving person in your life. Two of the books, one on painter Alice Neel, and one on photographer Richard Avedon, are well-designed and richly illustrated exhibition catalogs of recent exhibitions; one, also a show catalog, well-organized and attractive, with a Barkley Hendricks image on the cover, aggregates scholarship and imagery of art made by African Americans in the Black Power era (1960s-70s); and one is an extremely alluring and seductive design anthology of African design — interior, architecture, household furnishings, fashion — that will have you running to the Internet to make immediate purchases! Read on.

September 24, 2017 by Andrea Kirsh

Music to See at LAAC, Dunkerque

Andrea shepherds us to the French coastal town Dunkerque to review the exhibition at Lieu d’Art et Action Contemporaine (LAAC) organized by composer and musicologist Jean-Yves Bosseur. She writes, “While tracing familiar territory, it offered a broad view of the subject and a number of surprises with artists, both earlier and contemporary, who were new to me….This exhibition succeeded with a challenge that faces many museums today: how to present work and ideas that stimulate a knowledgeable audience while offering something for a more general public which may not be familiar with contemporary art.”

September 17, 2017 by Andrea Kirsh

documenta 14

This year the curatorial statement for documenta 14 followed suit with the general state of the arts by concentrating on political unrest, economic disparities exploitation, and the displacement of people. Andrea shares some of her favorite moments of the quinquennial festival, and also gives us a critical review of some of the unfortunate selections made by a few curators.