Concise, critical reviews of books, exhibitions, and projects in all areas and periods of art history and visual studies

Browse Recent Exhibition Reviews

Anne-Marie Logan
Peter Paul Rubens: The Drawings
Exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, 2005. 344 pp.; 145 color ills.; 151 b/w ills. Cloth $75.00 (0300104944)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, January 15–April 3, 2005
The medallions on the monumental facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art contain the names of, among other great artists, Rembrandt and Diego Velázquez. But if one looks for the name of the greatest master of the Flemish Baroque, Peter Paul Rubens, one will have searched in vain. Although Ruben’s paintings, oil sketches, and drawings lay within reach of the most important American collectors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they apparently avoided buying them. For example, Rubens is the only major seventeenth-century painter whose work is not represented in the Frick Collection in New York. This seems… Full Review
April 29, 2005
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New Work: Rachel Harrison
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, Calif., November 12, 2004–March 13, 2005
The cadences of an auctioneer greet the visitor to an exhibition of Rachel Harrison’s work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, but this is not Sotheby’s. It’s a low-rent auction. The bids come in one- and two-dollar increments, and there are no British accents. Intrigued by the galloping voice, you discover its source: a towering, amorphous, silvery blue, concrete mass entitled Hail to Reason. Although vaguely resembling Auguste Rodin’s Monument to Balzac in its tall, oblong shape, Hail to Reason does not represent anything in particular. Instead, it offers a lumpy surface punctuated by alcoves ideal for… Full Review
April 26, 2005
Chiyo Ishikawa, ed.
Spain in the Age of Exploration, 1492–1819
Exh. cat. Seattle: Seattle Art Museum in association with University of Nebraska Press, 2004. 300 pp.; 150 color ills. Cloth $50.00 (0803225059)
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Wash., October 16, 2004–January 2, 2005; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Fla., February 2, 2005–May 1, 2005
It has been a long time since a major American museum has undertaken an exhibition of Spanish art, and none has tackled as ambitious a subject as Spain in the Age of Exploration, 1492–1819. Organized by the Seattle Art Museum and Spain’s Patrimonio Nacional, the exhibition has a strong thematic content that is presented thoughtfully in a handsome catalogue and in the display of some one hundred rare objects. Most of the works are drawn from the Spanish royal collection, and many have never been seen outside of Spain. Prominent art museums in the United States… Full Review
April 25, 2005
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Threads of Conflict
William H. Van Every, Jr., Gallery, Davidson College, Davidson, N.C., January 20–February 27, 2005
Quietly stirring within the walls of Davidson College’s Van Every Gallery is war, violence, and sadness. It is a welcome surprise for the Charlotte region, whose most controversial dialogue on art tends to concern which Impressionist exhibition to visit. Although Davidson College consistently presents reputable but safe artists, the gallery’s director, Brad Thomas, has here curated a show that provides the public with artwork taking on substantive subject matter. The exhibition combines functional craft of textiles with conceptual purpose, bringing together three separate groups—Hmong, Afghan, and Chilean peoples—whose work treats the violence and injustice that surrounds… Full Review
April 21, 2005
Time/Space, Gravity, and Light
Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, Calif., November 16, 2004–February 27, 2005
Time/Space, Gravity, and Light, which complements Einstein, the major science-history exhibition on view at the Skirball Cultural Center through May 29, 2005, showcases recent digital art and multimedia installations that explore the same physical phenomena that captivated Albert Einstein throughout his life. The projects in Time/Space also embrace the world made possible by quantum mechanical devices, such as computers and electronics, which Einstein never knew. Glenn Phillips, research associate and consulting curator at the Getty Research Institute’s Department of Contemporary Programs and Research, ably organized the exhibition and paced the different modes of viewing, which range from the… Full Review
April 19, 2005
Karl Bassil, Zeina Maasri, and Akram Zaatari
Mapping Sitting: On Portraiture and Photography
Exh. cat. Beirut: The Arab Image Foundation, 2001. 250 pp.; 840 ills. $35.00 (9953000581)
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium, May 2002; Die Photographische Sammlung, Cologne, Germany, September 2002; Kunsternes Hus, Oslo, Norway, February, 2003; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany, March 2003; World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 2003; VideoBrasil Festival, São Paulo, Brazil, October 2003; Centro de Mariana, Toledo, Spain, November 2003; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece, January 2004; Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon, France, March 2004; Centre pour l’Image Contemporaine, Geneva, Switzerland, April 2004; Beiteddine Festival, Lebanon, July 2004; Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, January 11–April 2, 2005; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Ill., April 15–June 5, 2005; Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland, Ore., August 23–September 25, 2005
Visually compelling and intellectually sophisticated, Mapping Sitting: On Portraiture and Photography, A Project by Walid Raad and Akram Zaatari presented a wealth of photographic materials from the collection of the Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation (AIF). Embracing current theoretical approaches to the display of visual culture, the exhibition, curated by two artists, offered a richly textured and highly nuanced picture of Arab photography and its relationship to questions of identity. If the history of photography from this region is as little studied as the artist-curators assert, then their show certainly constitutes an exciting opening gambit that should inspire further study. … Full Review
April 8, 2005
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Richard F. Townsend, ed.
Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South
Exh. cat. Art Institute of Chicago in association with Yale University Press, 2004. 288 pp.; 320 color ills.; 120 b/w ills. Cloth $60.00 (0300104677)
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ill., November 20, 2004–January 30, 2005; Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Mo., March 4–May 30, 2005
Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South explores a period and a region of indigenous art little known even within the field of Native American art studies. Long studied by archaeologists, this vast area, roughly bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes, and the Gulf of Mexico, has been largely neglected by art historians and art museums. The only previous large-scale exhibition of material from this region occurred nearly twenty years ago.[1] Recently, however, scholars have begun reevaluate the imagery of these ancient cultures, and interdisciplinary seminars held over… Full Review
March 18, 2005
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Arthur K. Wheelock
Gerard ter Borch
Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art in association with American Federation of Arts, 2003. 172 pp.; 60 color ills.; 40 b/w ills. Cloth $55.00 (0300106394)
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., November 7, 2004–January 30, 2005; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Mich., February 27–May 22, 2005
Gerard ter Borch is the first exhibition dedicated to this important seventeenth-century Dutch genre painter and portraitist in thirty years, and its accompanying catalogue simultaneously serves as the only comprehensive study on the artist to appear in English to date. The catalogue is smaller than that of the exhibition that took place in The Hague and Münster in 1974, and smaller still than Sturla J. Gudlaugsson’s truly monumental study of Terborch that appeared in 1959–60. Nevertheless, the present exhibition and catalogue open up some new avenues of inquiry, which is only natural given scholarly trajectories in the field over the… Full Review
March 18, 2005
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Frances Morris
Louise Bourgeois: Stitches in Time
Exh. cat. August Projects, Cornerhouse Publishing in association with Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2002. 120 pp.; 30 color ills.; 40 b/w ills. $22.00 (1902854241)
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland, November 26, 2003–February 22, 2004; Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, March 5–May 9, 2004; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo deMalaga, Malaga, Spain, August 8–November 7, 2004; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Fla., February 12–March 27, 2005
Despite the fact that Louise Bourgeois has been making art for more than seven decades, her drawings, sculptures, and installations are completely contemporary. At the age of ninety-four, she is, according to the exhibition curator Frances Morris, “the oldest of young artists” (10). Organized by Morris, senior curator at the Tate Modern in London, with Brenda McParland, head of exhibitions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Louise Bourgeois: Stitches in Time is an intimate and engaging exhibition of her recent fabric sculptures, drawings, and a handful of older engravings. After a European tour, the exhibition closes at the Museum… Full Review
March 14, 2005
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Michelle Piranio, ed.
Past in Reverse: Contemporary Art of East Asia
San Diego, Calif.: San Diego Museum of Art, 2004. 184 pp.; 102 color ills.; 28 b/w ills. Paper $35.00 (0937108332)
San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, Calif., November 6, 2004–March 6, 2005; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo., June 3–September 4, 2005; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., January 15–March 12, 2006
Recent, new, and commissioned works by artists from mainland China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong are showcased in the exhibition Past in Reverse: Contemporary Art of East Asia, organized by the San Diego Museum of Art. The exhibition’s curator, Betti-Sue Hertz, aims to explore how such art references the past. As the idea of the “past” can mean many things, her thematic focus poses an unusual challenge for the viewer who may lack the requisite knowledge of the region known as East Asia. An illustrated catalogue with essays by the curator and other scholars and critics from… Full Review
January 26, 2005
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