Margaret Graham
In Conversation with Jonas Mekas
On the occasion of his recent solo exhibition To New York With Love at James Fuentes Gallery, Jonas Mekas, the indefatigable advocate of American independent cinema, graciously took the time out of his busy schedule to meet with the graduate students of the Art Criticism and Writing program at the School of Visual Arts for an in-depth conversation.
In Conversation with George Gittoes
George Gittoes was recently able to set aside some time for an extended conversation with Railpublisher Phong Bui and his students in the MFA Art Criticism and Writing program at the School of Visual Arts, via Skype from Pakistan.
SANFORD WURMFELD Light & Dark
By Margaret GrahamI had imagined that by now the world would have seen the best of black-and-white, that antithesis of all antitheses.
MAKOTO FUJIMURA Golden Sea
By Margaret GrahamMakoto Fujimura’s recent paintings exist on the cusp of paradox.
G.T. PELLIZZI The Red and the Black
By Margaret GrahamIntimate or no, the relationship that artist, architect, and philosopher G.T. Pellizzi shares with his tiger—that is, the art world—is not dissimilar from the one conveyed in Stendhal’s aphorism: Pellizzi, ever eager to engage in a play date, never steps on the scene without wisely packing plenty of heat.
Fountain Art Fair, 69th Armory Building
By Margaret GrahamIt is a rare and refreshing thing for inclusiveness to give an art fair its edge; somewhere between quality and quantity, variety and uniformity, a careful balance must be struck.
Empty House Casa Vazia
By Margaret GrahamDespite its name, Empty House Casa Vazia is anything but vacant: it blooms like a veritable Garden of Neoconcrete Delights, affording the eye plentiful stimuli ranging from sleek to arch. The eighteen Brazilian artists who have hewn these peculiar treasures span generations, yet their works share certain mannerisms and makeup, as well as a common conceptual tongue.
THOMAS NOZKOWSKI Works on Paper
By Margaret GrahamWhen speaking of his canonical painting Carnival of Harlequin (1924 – 25), Joan Miró once explained its anthropomorphized objects and hybrid creatures by saying: “I tried to deepen the magical side of things.”
Women of Abstract Expressionism
By Margaret Grahamn the conclusion of his 1983 review of a Lee Krasner retrospective held at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Robert Hughes wrote: “This is an intensely moving exhibition, and it will suggest to all but the most doctrinaire how many revisions of postwar American art history are still waiting to be made.”
DAVID HOCKNEY Early Drawings
By Margaret GrahamWhen looking at the plentiful selection of David Hockney’s early drawings now on view at Paul Kasmin Gallery, it is not the words of the artist but those of John Berger that first come to mind.
BILL JENSEN Floating World
By Margaret GrahamBill Jensen can be a difficult artist to love. Anxious and phenomenal, the work of this Brooklyn-based painter often goes down as smoothly as a gulp of Campari. But in Floating World, his current solo show at Yoshii Gallery, Jensen has dared to ease his hand and decompress his compositions.
TAL R Altstadt Girl
By Margaret GrahamSome of the most striking colors to be found in the natural world exist solely as counterparts to death and decay. Here and there, the lately living or slowly fading are ushered beyond the pale by richly-hued molds and parasites that unfurl in balloons and waves of radiant rot.
