Spring Art Cleaning: Out with the Junk-Yard Aesthetic and In with the Small Paintings

Can you smell the roses and linseed oil? There's a linen-fresh and sometimes, new mossy scent in the spring art air this week, a sign that this season's winter of artfully messy assemblage has started to off-gas a little and will soon be dragged back to the street from whence it came. At least that's the smell I'm picking up from the big boys and girls of New York's art critical print press, many of whom are publicly exhaling their weariness with the Unmonumentals and Whitneys of our late winter's discontent and are now bathing in the refreshing glows of Olafur Eliasson and elsewhere, all the small paintings. Smells like teen spirit!

Evidence abounds:

• "Stand Still; A Spectacle Will Happen," a review of the Olafur Eliasson retrospective at MoMA by Holland Cotter (and an excellent use of the semi-colon in headline, btw) for The New York Times.
Quote: "What a relief. Near the end of a decade crammed with junk-art collectibles geared to junk-bond budgets, and a museum season of ragbag sculptures and wallpapered words, we get bare walls and open space in the Olafur Eliasson survey..."

• Peter Schjeldahl's review of the Eliasson exhibit at MoMA for The New Yorker is titled "Uncluttered," signaling that the antidote to Unmonumental has arrived. Schjeldahl describes Eliasson's wall of moss as "exotic (and odorous)."

• "Wasted Youth," a review of Dan Cohen and Nate Lowman by Jerry Saltz for New York Magazine:
Quote: "looks too much like too many other shows—many of them excellent, some at Maccarone—to be taken as anything other than bad-boy shtick and hammy caricature. It radiates hipness and camaraderie, and is a warning that artists need to be wary of the point where influence turns into derivativeness."

• Roberta Smith's "Is Painting Small the Next Big Thing?" for The New York Times. Smith looks at the new phenomenon of petite abstract paintings in reviews of several painters.

You want to see wonderful small paintings by a major contemporary artist? Stay tuned for my review of Elizabeth Peyton's new small portraits at GBE on Greenwich Street. Roses, oil, linen canvases, and a portrait of Bob Dylan. Hmmm...nice...In comes the good air...hold, hold, hold....release gently....now exhale deeply....ahhhhhh.

See related posts from Walking Off the Big Apple:
Pack Arts Journalism in the Age of Un-Art: Writing About the Whitney Biennial
Unmonumental at the New Museum: Just Like Your Messy Friend's Place

Comments

25 Radical Things to Do in Greenwich Village

A list of 25 things to Do in Greenwich Village with history of protest, old cafes, and signs of change. Hipstamatic iPhone images of contemporary Greenwich Village by Walking Off the Big Apple (Revised and updated.) Flipping through Greenwich Village: A Photographic Guide by Edmund T. Delaney and Charles Lockwood with photographs by George Roos, a second, revised edition published in 1976, it’s easy to compare the black and white images with the look of today’s neighborhood and see how much the Village has changed. A long shot photograph of Washington Square taken up high from an apartment north of the park, and with the looming two towers of the World Trade Center off to the distant south in the background, reveals a different landscape than what we would encounter today. On the north side of the park, an empty lot and two small buildings have since given way to NYU’s Kimmel Center and a new NYU Center for Academic and Spiritual Center Life. The Judson Me...

Museums in New York Open on Mondays

UPDATED July 9, 2024 Please consult the museum websites for changes in days and hours. • Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) 10:30 am - 5:30 pm • The Metropolitan Museum of Art 10 am - 5 pm • Whitney Museum 10:30 - 6 pm • American Museum of Natural History 10 am - 5:30 pm • Jewish Museum 11 am - 6 pm • International Center of Photography (ICP) 11 am -7 pm • Guggenheim 10:30 am - 5:30 pm • The Museum of the City of New York 10 am - 5 pm • Cooper Hewitt 10 am - 6 pm • Neue Galerie 11 am - 6 pm The Whitney Museum of American Art General Information American Museum of Natural History Central Park West and 79th Street See the post, Big Things to See at the American Museum of Natural History . Cooper Hewitt 2 East 91st St. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 1071 Fifth Ave Jewish Museum 1109 Fifth Ave The Metropoli...

10 Short Walks from Grand Central Terminal

(updated March 2017) Famously crowded Grand Central Terminal functions as a major crossroads for the city, hosting busy commuters as they come and go from the suburbs via the Metro-North Railroad or within the city via a few subway lines, but the terminal also happens to be a good place to launch short walks. With its south side fronting E. 42nd Street and its massive structure interrupting Park Avenue, Grand Central provides quick access to many of the city's most well-known attractions. The New York Public Library and Bryant Park are only a couple of blocks away from the terminal, a quick jaunt on 42nd Street. And from there, Times Square is just another block or two farther west of the library, its neon shimmering in the distance. One wonders, standing near the intersection of 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, how many souls have been lured away from their well-meaning library studies by the beckoning lights of the Theater District. Grand Central Terminal : Before setting...

From Penn Station to New York Landmarks: Measuring Walking Distance and Time in Manhattan

(revised 2017) How long does it take to walk from Penn Station/Madison Square Garden to well-known destinations in Manhattan? What are the best walking routes ? What if I don't want to see anything in particular but just want to walk around? In addition to the thousands of working commuters from the surrounding area, especially from New Jersey and Long Island who arrive at Penn Station via New Jersey Transit or the Long Island Rail Road, many people arrive at the station just to spend time in The City. Some have questions. Furthermore, a sporting event may have brought you to Madison Square Garden (above Penn Station), and you want to check out what the city offers near the event. This post if for you. The map below should help you measure walking distances and times from the station to well-known destinations in Manhattan - Bryant Park , the Metropolitan Museum of Art , the Empire State Building , Times Square , Rockefeller Center , Washington Square Park , the High Line ...

25 Things To Do in Chelsea

On the High Line, with the Whitney Museum of American Art (revised and updated 2018) The phenomenal popularity of the High Line on the West Side has no doubt introduced many visitors to the pleasures of Chelsea , the multifaceted eclectic neighborhood that stretches out below. On the west side of the rails, between W. 14th and W. 29th Streets or so, the Chelsea Gallery District is home to hundreds of contemporary art galleries in repurposed warehouses. New luxury residences rise up around these spaces, taking advantage of the stunning Hudson River views. On the east side of the line, the iconic Empire State Building comes into the picture, but closer in, the Gothic Revival outlines of the General Theological Seminary represent the neighborhood's roots in an earlier century. Chelsea is a remarkable neighborhood bound together by an artistic and visual history, but it's also a community held together by social institutions - schools, historic houses of worsh...

25 Things To Do Near the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

(updated 2016) The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) at 11 W. 53rd Street is near many other New York City attractions, so before or after a trip to the museum, a short walk in any direction could easily take in additional experiences. Drawing a square on a map with the museum at the center, a shape bounded by 58th Street to the north and 48th Street to the south, with 7th Avenue to the west and Park Avenue to the east, proves the point of the area's cultural richness. (A map follows the list below.) While well-known sightseeing stops fall with these boundaries, most notably Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the great swath of famous Fifth Avenue stores, cultural visitors may also want to check out places such as the Austrian Cultural Forum, the 57th Street galleries, the Onassis Cultural Center, and the Municipal Art Society. The image above shows an intriguing glimpse of the tops of two Beaux-Arts buildings through an opening of the wall inside MoMA's scu...

Walking Off the Big Apple

Search This Blog