New York Interlude Part III: Raphael Rubinstein's Reinventing Abstraction

There are a lot of things to love about this show--the exquisite placement of works, the perfectly proportioned galleries, the knowing title taken from a review of Stephen Mueller by Carrie Moyer, the amount of talent, intelligence and thoughtfulness invested by artists and curator alike--as well as the pleasure of revisiting works seminal to artistic development in the '80s.

Jonathan Lasker--once shockingly dissonant, now harmonious though the ideas are still present and viable.

David Reed detail--the variety within economical means astounds.

A very close detail of Reed's painting. Two down for a full view of this painting.

Pat Steir's precursor to waterfalls. I love seeing the work develop over time.

Left, Mary Heilman, right, David Reed in a gorgeous pairing. Look at Reed's white edge, acting as its own color.

Louise Fishman--a beauty, 25 x 22.

Detail.

Stephen Mueller, detail. Various textures and blank canvas not unlike works made today.

The strangest example of a Mueller I've seen--the later work more refined and coherent within its disparity.

Thomas Nozskowski

Gary Stephan

Detail, Stephan

Joan Snyder's lavish surface

Weirdness! incised incisions.

Textural joy

Jack Whitten

Stanley Whitney! An exciting surprise--the backstory to his current grids...

To be able to see the work develop over time is one of the greatest payoffs of this show.

Terry Winters

I used to dream of painting paintings like these

The hand so delicate, while slathering it on.

Carroll Dunham, seen from now, nascent vision

I first saw Bill Jensen's work at the Phillips Collection. Its arc is as radical and thrilling as Stanley Whitney's.

New York Interlude Part II: Endless Summer at Brian Morris with one Lauren Luloff from last post tacked on

Liz Markus--I am taken with her light touch, transparent washes, brilliant color and use of glitter. Added: I keep forgetting that painter GARY PETERSEN curated this show--and a fine job he did.

Mathew Fisher--weird paintings in hard-to-photograph locations--a strange, Japanese-screen-or-woodcut-like stillness within natural forms. He was in a three-person show at Heskin some years ago.

Gregory Botts - reminds me a little of Richard Bosman in his graphic, straight-up approach that gives way to the painterly

More Liz Markus

Amanda Church, dense, flat surface and pinstriped form

Elisabeth Kley - fanciful glazes on sun-like forms

Erik den Breejen

Osamu Kobayashi

It's so simple, I wanted to hate it, but couldn't.

Judith Linhares, Drink, 2012

Bay-area inflected brush handling...popping bright flat color against neutrals.

Lauren Luloff from Summer Session, imported from last post.

Before the Next Slide Show: New York Interlude Part I: Summer Session + Mary Corse, LES

Beautiful rainy late afternoon on the LES (August 9th)--the whole street looked green

Susanna Coffey at Summer Session, Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects

Color in its infinite gradations moving across the plane, building form

Gideon Bok's Electric Landlady from 2007

Bravura with linseed - slithery slapping brushstrokes

Figures assemble from marks and swipes

Lauren Luloff, detail - playfulness into beauty

Sagram Majumdar - shades of Euan Uglow

Gandie Brodie - picking up the neutral tones and textures in Coffey's portrait

Darker, more swiped

Lester Johnson with intruding reflection--such satisfying scale, abandoned touch--in a good way

Katherine Bradford, a tableau of marks that become space

Anne Harvey, a lovely, limpid cross between '80s Jennifer Bartlett and Milton Avery

At Lehman Maupin, 201 Chrystie, Mary Corse

As a student at UCLA I visited her Topanga Cyn., CA studio...and never forgot her use of reflective paint (glass microspheres in acrylic)

These still excite me. There were a lot of striped paintings in the '70s but these stand out.

Their scale, material and subtlety are beautiful.

Travel Slide Show I: Grand Canyon, South Rim Artist Residency

Trail of Time, where each step represents millions of years in rock formations

Indian Gardens, an oasis 4.5 miles in to the Bright Angel Trail. It has a small lending library!

Iron oxide rocks, limestone cliffs behind.

Desert View Sunday: Colorado River looking green. Layers of geological time: the diagonal stripes in the background form a Supergroup of layers that occur in the Great Uncomformity, which is a major time lapse within the upward and downward shifting of sediment and liquid as the landscape morphs from swamp to beach to dune, though I've heard it said that the Supergroup itself constitutes the Great Uncomformity.

Desert View Monday

Overlook en route to Desert View

View from the studio above Verkamps Visitor Center

Hermits Rest, a mile or so down the trail

Monsoon coming: the rooftop porch

As a child, I was often recruited to my grandparents' to watch slide shows of their various travels, which were formally presented, after dinner, on a Kodak projection screen from a collection of shiny, black Kodak carousels. Unsated curiosity about their motivations in boating or flying to Honolulu, Bankok, Paris, and many other places around the world is layered with the desire to join the collective desire to share images via social media.

Thus the first "Travel Slide Show" in honor of the early childhood slide shows, documenting the Grand Canyon and Wupatki National Monument, where I spent June and July as Artist in Residence.

Happy Trails from Raggedy Ann's Foot

Here's to a wonderful summer, whether concrete canyon or Grand.