Irony LivesThis year’s polite, eclectic Whitney Biennial – featuring less painting than ever – demonstrates that post-September 11 reports of the death o […]
Daughter Knows BestIn the Met’s exhibition of the paintings of the father-and-daughter Gentileschis, it’s Artemisia – a centuries-ahead-of-her-time proto-feminist […]
Gray MattersA MoMA retrospective shows how hard it is to draw a bead on German painter Gerhard Richter, who sidesteps black-and-white certainties.
Surrealistic Pillow Talk A new Met show reveals the Surrealists as you’ve never seen them before – though their excursions into the erotic look disarmingly innocent today.
FleshpotsIrving Penn’s startling nudes challenge ideas about beauty and femininity by
presenting voluptuous women audacious enough to be comfortable in t […]
Mass AppealStriking exhibits of ancient art from Egypt (at the Brooklyn Museum) and Easter Island (at the Met) point up something missing from contemporary […]
In BriefWe forget that many great works of art were not created for the mausoleums we call museums. They were made not to be laid out for inspection, li […]
Pop CornA huge Norman Rockwell retrospective at the Guggenheim coincides with an art-world reevaluation of the painter – and makes one wonder, What wou […]
Freedom TrainTwo striking shows that reflect the black experience in America and the forward motion of history.
Modern RuinsHow the spontaneous outpourings of “art” since the disaster have brought a new (old) look to the city.
History’s HandA timely Giacometti retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art suggests that he captured something essential about the last century that’s releva […]
French LessonsAt the Met, Paul Signac and his luminous seascapes emerge from Seurat’s shadow.
New Art-World OrderHow will contemporary art change in the aftermath of the disaster? And will old works take on new meanings?
Not Just DessertsThe Whitney’s Wayne Thiebaud retrospective goes beyond creamy cakes and pies to reveal a sophisticated Pop alternative to Warhol’s deadpan irony.
Flowers on the WallAt the Met, a fascinating look at four French modernists with grander aspirations than painting pretty pictures on an easel.
Goya’s ChildrenRetrospectives of the artists Leon Golub and James Ensor, who strikingly reveal the real monsters within us.
In BriefPerhaps the chief surprise of Freestyle – a show of work by young black artists at the Studio Museum in Harlem – is what’s not there. The powe […]
In the Company of MenA gallery show of photographic portraits from an era when a man wasn’t afraid to show a little affection for his fellow man.
Fit to Be TiedIn the chilling ravished-doll images of Nazi-era German photographer Hans Bellmer, hints of defiance in the face of totalitarianism.
Homemade HeavenThe Met’s William Blake show reveals a visionary, individualist craftsman who forged images of Paradise you could hold in your hand.
Geek ArtIn the Whitney’s “BitStreams” show, artists who
use the latest digital technology – but where’s the Monet of the mouse?
Pixel VisionaryIn the photographs of Andreas Gursky, now on view at MoMA, crowds of people become colorful fields of happy pixels, the world a sort of human ho […]
Local HeroThe Met puts Vermeer in the context of Dutch painting and his time, but even next to his gifted contemporaries he stands out as a genius.
Glop ArtNote to the mayor: You might want to take a close look at the Paul McCarthy show at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. But not too close.
Commitment-phobiaThough “Committed to the Image” is itself noncommittal in its approach to contemporary black photography, it includes some strikingly beautiful […]
Space CowboysAt the Dia Center for the Arts, two affecting takes on iconic imagery of the past; at MoMA, a narrow but deep Van Gogh show.
The World in a PotIn the humble still lifes of Chardin – many painters’ favorite painter – you can find everything you need to know; it’s the fleeting moments t […]
Dream WeaverA fascinating show on the Bauhaus-trained textile artist Anni Albers may finally move her out of the shadow of her more famous husband.
Past Perfect?At the Brooklyn Museum, idyllic views of a long-ago New York – where crime and killer mosquitoes were as much a concern as they are today.
William EdmondsonAccording to William Edmondson, the angels told him to begin making the tombstone statuary that’s now gathered into an exhibition at the Museum […]
Roads Less Traveled ByThe Guggenheim’s expansive “1900: Art at the Crossroads” presents revisionist art history, forsaking chronology and refusing to judge.
A View With Some RoomIn his grandiose landscape paintings, Frederic Edwin Church staked out that typically American space between the sideshow and the sublime.
Metaphysical CultureUnlike most spiritually inspired Western art, the sub-Saharan African works on display in the Met’s “Art and Oracle” haven’t lost their religion.
It’s All in the RistPipilotti Rist’s mix of fifties-era kitsch and postmodern self-awareness delivers a savvy commentary on the state of contemporary art.
Painters in Paris: 1895-1950For the show Painters in Paris: 1895-1950, which recently opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the curators have cherry-picked many of the […]
Barbell DollsAre the pumped-up female bodies on display in “Picturing the Modern Amazon” really showing us what liberation looks like?
Built for Comfort“Sanitation” aside, amid all the pop effluvia and Internet art at the 2000 Whitney Biennial, there’s a sense not of anger but of ease.
The Revision ThingWith “Making Choices,” the Museum of Modern Art continues to rethink and rearrange its collection, and the results are eye-opening.
Saints ElsewhereThe flowing lines and sweeping shapes of a little-known medieval sculptor are enough to tarnish Rodin’s reputation.
21st-Century ExpressTrainloads of New Yorkers head to Long Island City for a new show surveying the year-2000 state of local art – but where’s the painting?
Tomb It May ConcernBecause the ancients painted on wood, some of their most glorious art is dust; all the more reason to treasure the “mummy portraits” at the Met.
Surfing the GuggenheimNam June Paik has spent his career thinking inside the box – the TV – and his retrospective is broadband, with hundreds of fascinating channels.
This American LifeWalker Evans’s photographs, on exhibit at the Met, transcend all the platitudes – providing a portrait of the American soul.
Scars and StripesTwo shows at the Museum of Natural History look at people who decorate their bodies and at butterflies, who have no choice in the matter.
Thomas SchütteIn the past twenty years, Thomas Schütte – a prolific and wide-ranging German artist – has found many different ways to confront and awaken th […]
Fresh MeatThe paintings of Jenny Saville, the latest prodigy from the Freud-Bacon school of British fleshmongers, amount to a kind of anti-advertising.
Visionary PositionsArtists once dreamed about the future; now they just worry about Y2K like the rest of us. Here, three shows look to the past for a vision of a b […]
Shooting the BreezeIn the casually snapped photographs of Daido Moriyama, the boundaries between art and life, like the images themselves, can be blurry.
Social X-RaysThe Guggenheim reveals Francisco Clemente in all his voluptuary, self-involved glory.
