With a title like Landscapes and Heroes, Nicole Charbonnet’s show at Simonne Stern might seem to suggest famous myths and legends, or at least, famous movies. Yet, while these semi-abstract works bear a passing similarity to landscapes, any actual figures, heroic or otherwise, are in scant supply.
The paintings shown in this exhibition mark a new direction for Nicole Charbonnet. They provoke a different set of feelings — of sensibility even — than what we have come to associate with her work. The close-hued pastel yellows and pinks have yielded to a darker palette of greyed-blues, umbers and greens; the peeled and hollowed flower shapes that characterized an earlier, more abstract vocabulary have transmigrated to a heightened level of complexity.
When fist viewing a portrait by Whitfield Lovell, you feel you are looking at someone familiar. His men, women, and children, all of them ordinary black people from the period after Reconstruction and before the civil right era, haunt you with their calm self-possession. Some appear well-to-do; others look poor, tired, sad. But there is always an intelligence in their eyes that says they control their own destinies, even if only for this moment.
Dale Chihuly’s love affair with glass has endured for over 40 years, resulting in a breath-taking collection of sculptures and installations. In an exclusive interview, Judith Calver discovers how he works and what inspires the American sculptor.
Have you ever wondered what color the universe is? If so, you may be gratified to know that research scientists at Johns Hopkins University have determined that the universe is beige. Yes, beige – actually, pale beige – according to their best computer calculations. Sounds bland, doesn’t it?
A sea of clouds the color of freshly shucked oysters hovered over southern Louisiana as we drove into New Orleans to view the new art shows before the opening night crowds. Rain fell continuously until we got to La Place. As we drew nearer to New Orleans, a pale yellow aura lying just above the horizon suggested that rain was not yet falling in the city.
As a primary and collective ethos, postmodernism probably no longer exists. Too many years have passed. And yet, as sheer effect, it seems absolutely pervasive —and interminable.
As a primary and collective ethos, postmodernism probably no longer exists. Too many years have passed. And yet, as sheer effect, it seems absolutely pervasive —and interminable. A movement that was, at once, soundly intellectual and blithely reactionary, now proceeds rutterless.
At first glance the room seems cluttered with wildly disparate icons, the detritus of western culture: ceramic pencils, mirrors, piano keys, floppy disks, dollar bills, musical notes, hamburgers, coffee cups, religous symbols.
By Paul Ryan, ART PAPERS Staunton, Virginia Al Souza’s puzzle “paintings” (Reynolds Gallery, July 10—August 24) are actually assemblages that he constructs from multiple, found jigsaw puzzles. Yet, within the…