January 06, 2014, 8:52pm

MUST SEE PAINTING SHOWS: JANUARY

I looked a lot of art while hunkering down to escape the subarctic temperatures blasting through Boston and much of the rest of the country. My monthly review of more than four hundred gallery shows yielded close to one hundred must-see painting shows, three-dozen of which involve New American Paintings’ alumni.

Among the NAP exhibitions are Radcliffe Bailey at Jack Shianman Gallery in New York City (the mid-career, Atlanta-based artist’s work was the focus of a stellar museum exhibition that traveled for much of 2011 and 2012); John Sparagana at Corbett vs. Dempsey in Chicago,; Astrid Bowlby at Gallery Joe in Philadelphia; and in Los Angeles, Annie Lapin (2010 NAP Artist of the Year) and Matthew Penkala, at Honor Fraser and Western Project, respectively.

John Sparagana. Courtesy of Corbett vs. Dempsey.

There are two noteworthy gallery shows of artists who made their reputations in the earlier part of the 20^th-Century: works by Regionalist Thomas Hart Benton are on display at Alan Avery Art Company in Atlanta, and Mr. Push/Pull, Hans Hoffman, whose students included a number of prominent second generation Abstract Expressionists, is on view at Ameringer|McEnery|Yohe in New York City. A number of emerging painters look particularly good this month, including: Alexandra Grant at Lora Reynolds Gallery in Austin; Zoe Nelson at Western Exhibitions in Chicago; Laeh Glenn at Altman Siegel in San Francisco; and in New York, Anke Weyer at Canada, Davina Semo at Marlborough Chelsea, and Kour Pour at Untitled.

If abstraction is not your thing, there are plenty of shows of artists working with images, some in a more traditional mode. In Chicago, eighty-something Jane Freilicher will have a one-woman show at Chicago’s Valerie Carberry Gallery. Maine-based painter Gideon Bok has a soon-to-close solo show of paintings depicting the interior of his studio at Barry Whistler Gallery in Dallas, Texas. In New York, be sure to catch Yvonne Jacquette at DC Moore, Steven Assael at Forum Gallery, and Robert Bechtle at Gladstone Gallery.

After the jump, you'll find the entire must-see list for January. Enjoy. - Steven Zevitas, Publisher

December 30, 2013, 2:41pm

Getting Lost in the Crowd: Francesca Bifulco at Jna Gallery

A few months ago, I saw painter Francesca Bifulco’s work at Bergamot Station’s Jna Gallery in Santa Monica.  Her “crowd series” moved and impressed me with their sheer size, the density and details of the crowds depicted, the hard-lined graphics, and the oscillating feeling between oppressivity and sensitivity that she creates. – Ellen C. Caldwell, Los Angeles Contributor

Francesca Bifulco | In the Crowd #4, 130” x 83”, Acrylic on canvas, Paestum, Italy, 2011. Courtesy of the artist.

December 24, 2013, 10:01am

Monster Masterpieces: The Art of Antonio Berni

Ranging from the charming to the absurd, the work of Antonio Berni has been ubiquitous in Argentina since the 1930s, when he was a young artist advocating for political change. Little-known in the United States today, his works are a staple in many of Argentina’s major institutions, forming the core of permanent collections like the Latin American Museum of Buenos Aires (MALBA) and the National Museum of Fine Arts. With an oeuvre that spans several decades of the twentieth century (Berni was prolific until his death in 1981), the diversity of his styles is astounding. While visiting Buenos Aires recently, I encountered small Chirico-style surrealist panels, expressive mural-sized scenes similar to those of Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros, and—most curiously—an enormous papier-mâché sculpture of an alligator-monster with a woman’s legs emerging from its mouth.  

Antonio Berni | La pesadilla de Ramona (The nightmare of Ramona), 1964, Mixed media, approx. 3 x 2 x 10 feet, MALBA, Buenos Aires.

December 19, 2013, 3:59pm

14 Artists (+2) to Watch in 2014

Artists kept making paintings in 2013, and they did so in ever more inventive ways. If any single word can sum up the overriding concern of many younger artists over the past few years it is process. As of late, many painters have defined themselves not so much with a specific image or style, but with the way in which they go about “producing” their work. Fire extinguishers, bleach, the sun, printing technologies and even spaghetti have all been employed in the quest for aesthetic advancement. For these artists, the way in which an artwork is made becomes deeply embedded in the meaning of their work. The results of such technical explorations can occasionally come of as gimmicky, but, when successful, they can lead to extraordinary art and new ways of thinking about the medium of paint.

What does painting hold for 2014? If a quick survey of upcoming museum shows, including the 2014 Whitney Biennial is any indication, it will be more widely exhibited and talked about than ever, and mature artists such as Dona Nelson (a 2012 Painters to Watch pick) and Suzanne McClelland will, more and more, have their long overdue day. I will also go out on a limb and say that, after several years where abstraction has been the dominant language of painting, representational work will start to mount a comeback. Among the hundreds of artists I consider each year while publishing New American Paintings, I have noticed a considerable uptick in the number of young painters working with recognizable imagery, some in, dare I say it, almost traditional modes. (And yes, I am aware that representational painting never left, but the institutions that make up the so-called art world have been preoccupied with other things in recent years.)

Dona Nelson. Courtesy of Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, NY.  

Over the past year I conducted dozens of studio visits, traveled to numerous art fairs, and saw hundreds of gallery and museum shows. The list of Painters to Watch in 2014 is made up of some new discoveries, a few artists who, in my mind, presented breakout work this year, and a few old favorites who deserve wider attention. For the purposes of this list, I am defining the activity of painting as broadly as possible. Traditional definitions of media have become less and less important for emerging artists, and, no doubt, some of the listed artists would not consider themselves to be painters per se. - Steven Zevitas, Publisher

Who is on your list?