Georg Baselitz, at Gagosian Gallery, NYC. Through Dec. 22. The German painter Georg Baselitz rose to fame in the '70s and '80s for his fearless and direct confrontation with his nation's disgraceful 20th Century. At a time when his teachers and the German art world embraced American pop art, Baselitz went art brut. He was kicked out of his East German art school and came west to make big, sloppy canvases that snaked with wide swaths of bright color, black outlines, sloppy drips. He painted an infamous canvas of the child Adolf Hitler with an erection the size of...
I almost walked through Sophie von Hellerman's show at Greene Naftali without thinking, which is to say without really looking. My eye went to a canvas that features a group of figures gathered around a table with a huge drawing or map unfolded on top. I couldn't figure it out visually, what it was. Then I marvelled at how little von Hellerman used to suggest a figure -- a dash of line here and a blotch of color there -- and became enchanted. Her work looks soft and sloppy, but don't be deceived. It's strategic and suggestive. She is...
Will Ryman, "Tuesday Afternoon" at Marlborough Gallery, NYC. Through Dec. 8. Will Ryman's work can look like hell, which is absolutely perfect for the monster hangover he's laid out in Marlborough's new Chelsea space. Ryman spent ten years as a writer and dramatist and first created sculpture for one of his plays in 2001. Narrative and character tension is still there in these playful sculptures that wear their handmade qualities pretty raw. "Tuesday Afternoon" is made of two large sculture groups. One is a teeming city street with all sorts of characters and a beautiful lamp post. The other...
These are not photographs. Robert Longo's charcoal drawings are incredibly life-like -- and huge (note the scale in the second photo, where you can see the first photo reflected, along with other gallery-goers). His latest show, called "Children of Nyx," is a small group of drawings of children and infants. The children all seem to be asleep, eyes closed and lips slightly parted. Seeing these kids is like seeing a movie theater from the outside. You can only guess at the dreams inside. Nyx was the Greek goddess of the night and creation, mother of Sleep and Death. Longo's...
I first came across Tucker Nichols' work on his What a Day site, where the artist makes one small work a day and posts it online for all to see. His pieces are deceptively simple and engaged in Nichols' everyday life. One piece could feature the simple scrawl of an advertising phrase, while another could be a mysterious shape that looks like cotton balls trapped in a bird cage. His work seemed to be about taking the things we throw away or don't pay attention to and clarifying them in small, strong compositions, like seeing a city reflected in...
