Mario Naves
Articles by Mario Naves
How Abstract Clumps Became Philip Roth and Dick Nixon
Once, the American painter Philip Guston (1913-1980) was a polarizing artist. It’s the stuff of legend: An esteemed second-generation Abstract Expressionist, renowned for exquisitely honed arrangements of fleshy brushstrokes, turns to a brutish figurative art—a nightmarish realm of Klansmen, endless hangovers and hellish rooms lit by bare light bulbs. read more »
Koons’ Expensive Distractions Clutter Met’s Summer Rooftop
A few months back, I bumped into a colleague at the Met’s Courbet exhibition. After a polite disagreement about the merits of the 19th-century French painter—he’s a fan, I’m not—we extolled the Met’s stellar run of historical exhibitions mounted under the guidance of since-retired director Philippe de Montebello: Ingres, tapestries, Velázquez, the Greek and Roman galleries, the list goes on.
When the discussion turned to the museum’s forays into contemporary art, the requisite eyeball-rolling ensued. read more »
Sleeper
In the past 30 years Thomas Nozkowski’s allusive yet enigmatically abstract paintings have gradually acquired a cultlike devotion. This patient, quietly determined artist is the anti-hype—his paintings are slow.
Lately, however, Mr. Nozkowski has been getting a lot of attention. His paintings were featured at the Venice Biennale last summer; a mini-retrospective at Long Island City’s Emily Fisher Landau Center just closed; and two of his paintings from MoMA’s permanent collection are currently on display. read more »
Warhol, Porn and Vuitton
The most interesting thing about Takashi Murakami, whose paintings, sculptures and merchandise are the subject of “© Murakami” at the Brooklyn Museum, is that he’s above shame. To know shame is to realize there are standards of behavior that, when bent or broken, cause remorse or, at least, self-awareness of having done wrong. Shame is unknown in Mr. Murakami’s rarefied orbit: Art is an adjunct of capital. There’s no second thought given to this fact.
Andy Warhol is the starting point for Mr. Murakami’s cold embrace of heedless commercialism. read more »
Flora, Cupcakes and a Tawny Ambience
Susan Homer, whose paintings are at metaphor contemporary art in Brooklyn, works in two distinct manners predicated on two distinct scales. On large canvases—for Ms. Homer that would be around five by six feet—she paints free-floating accumulations of flora. In small formats—the paintings don’t go beyond 12 inches in any direction—Ms. Homer dedicates herself to domesticity graced by nature: birds alighting on teacups, cupcakes or a dish containing ginger cookies.
Ms. read more »
Pennsylvania Cubist
Squirreled away in the Whitney’s mezzanine galleries, far from the Biennial’s hubbub, is an exhibition of paintings, drawings and watercolors by the American modernist Charles Demuth (1883-1935). “Chimneys and Towers: Charles Demuth’s Late Paintings of Lancaster” is devoted predominantly to industrial images of Demuth’s Pennsylvania hometown. read more »
Floating World Settles Over City
“Designed for Pleasure: The World of Edo Japan in Prints and Paintings, 1680-1860,” an exhibition at the Asia Society, is a trying experience because the awe it elicits is unremitting. Has there been a New York exhibition quite as beautiful? read more »
Advertisements for Himself
(1844-45).
The 19th-century French painter Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was a big personality, a cultural subversive, a braggart and showman worthy of P. T. Barnum. He was also a paint-handler of exquisite grit and outrageous sensuality—traits that combined into an artist whose greatness just barely redeemed his insufferable narcissism. By the time you’re through with the first gallery of the Met’s “Gustave Courbet,” ringed with 20 or so self-portraits of the artist, you’ll have had quite enough of Courbet.
The arrogance of youth is everywhere in these pictures. read more »
Alas, the Biennial Is … Kinda Boring
Camilla (2007).
Somewhere there’s an art history graduate student sitting in Starbucks, laptop and venti decaf latte on hand, writing a thesis on the Whitney Biennial. It’s bound to be a history of arrant egos, frustrated reputations, political intrigue, curatorial missteps and temporary fame.
Part of the narrative will be an inventory of reviews. Given the negative and sometimes vitriolic criticism the Biennial has engendered over the years, it should be an entertaining and maybe hilarious roundup. read more »
A Painter’s Progress
“Reason in the grass and tears in the sky”—this lyrical sentiment was Paul Cézanne’s self-stated ambition for his art and referred directly to the paintings of the French classicist Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), whose landscapes are the subject of “Poussin and Nature; Arcadian Visions,” an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Viewers coming into contact with a Poussin painting, let alone 40 or so, will realize how high the bar is that Cézanne set for himself. While no painting is perfect, Poussin came close, and not a few times. read more »
Freaky Fetishes at the Guggenheim, but—Fear Not—Free Therapy at the Whitney
Guggenheim.
Parisian-born sculptor Louise Bourgeois’ life and career have been remarkable. Born in 1911, four years after Picasso painted Les Demoiselles D’Avignon, Bourgeois came of age during a time when “avant-garde” had yet to become the empty boast of PR men. Influenced by the murkier tangents of Surrealism, Ms. Bourgeois, who studied at the École du Louvre and was Fernand Léger’s assistant before coming to the United States in 1938, pursues a fetishistic form of sculpture that touches upon childhood fantasy and bodily decrepitude. A couple of Ms. read more »
Talk About a Solo Show!
Antea (c. 1531-34).
“Parmigianino’s Antea: A Beautiful Artifice,” an exhibition at the Frick Collection, poses an interesting question: Is it more challenging to view a show dedicated to a single work of art, or one featuring several?
A comprehensive exhibition demands concentration predicated, in part, on sheer numbers. The viewer enjoys (or contends with) breadth and context. But an exhibition featuring a single work demands a different kind of attention. read more »
A Radical Conservative
Marfa, TX (2007).
Jerry Saltz, art critic for New York magazine, appeared on a panel a few years back where he described the painter Rackstraw Downes as “strong conservative.” We know what “strong” is: forceful, confident and of a high quality. But “conservative”—what on earth can that mean?
Mr. Downes is a representational painter—this is to say, an artist who creates recognizable images. But so are Will Cotton, Neo Rauch and Carroll Dunham. No one runs around pegging them as “conservative,” so that can’t be it. read more »
Don’t Ask Him Why
Jasper Johns seems like a down-to-earth kind of guy. In an interview conducted by curator Nan Rosenthal, published in the catalog accompanying “Jasper Johns: Gray,” an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mr. Johns answers questions with Hemingway-like curtness. It’s a self-effacing performance. You didn’t have to be there to register his droll, deadpan demeanor.
Ms. Rosenthal quizzes the artist on his gray paintings and often comes away with … not much. Mr. Johns isn’t belligerent or evasive. read more »
Uffizi on Madison
a Stool (1555-65).
Any event prompting a reacquaintance with The Lives of the Artists, the seminal art historical tract by Giorgio Vasari, is, almost by definition, a good one. So it is with “Michelangelo, Vasari and Their Contemporaries; Drawings From the Uffizi,” an exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum.
Vasari (1511-1574) was a vastly important figure in 16th-century Florence; the city and era are inconceivable without him. read more »
An Artist’s Wild Oats
“Diebenkorn in New Mexico” is, as its title makes plain, an exhibition about place as much as it is about art. The degree to which geographic specificity determines the character of a work may be a moot point—for some, the globe-crossing verities of our technological age have all but trumped the local. The smoky and sometimes rambunctious paintings on display at N.Y.U.’s Grey Art Gallery are, in that light, antiquated. read more »
Dada’s Dada
sans langage.
The Dadaist painter Francis Picabia (1879-1953) went through life with no shortage of self-generated noms de plume. To name a few: funny guy, imbecile, pickpocket, failure, cannibal, silly willy and “the only complete artist.” He signed off as “Napoleon,” “Saint Augustine” and “The Blessed Virgin.” Anyone familiar with Dada will recognize its nose-thumbing esprit in Picabia’s absurdist designations.
Picabia considered himself the first Dadaist. read more »
The Funk Brother
Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Arts Graphiques
A Fete at Saint-Cloud (ca. 1760), a drawing on display at the Frick Collection’s exhibition of the works of Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (1724-1780), depicts an 18th-century Parisian bal champêtre, or outdoor ball. Set in the grandiose Parc de Saint-Cloud with the magisterial staircase of the Grande Cascade as its backdrop, the young men and women of fashionable society display their good breeding. read more »
A Painter’s Sculptor
Art as Antagonism
We’re encouraged to compare and contrast the 21 paintings on display with around 100 prints. How is Freud’s vision altered or confirmed by his approach to the two media? read more »
The Art Basel Miami Miasma
But Is It Kitsch?
The Tapestries Are Back!
Ceremonial Offerings
The Met reconsiders the rituals that gave traditional African art its meaning. read more »
In the Know, and In the Thick Of It
Rosemarie Beck’s struggle against the influence of the mighty Abstract Expressionists was brave, but futile. read more »
Puryear’s Promise of Release
A ‘backyard’ sculptor brings deadpan humor and whimsy to MoMA’s second floor. read more »
Another Side of Seurat
The Pointillist found a ghostly romance when he put his palette aside. read more »
The Stealth Sophisticate
The Enron of the Art World?
Fifteen investors claim they were bilked by an Upper East Side art gallery. It’s a ‘Ponzi scheme,’ alleges one. read more »
Abstract, Domestic
Latin American artists walked the line between native tradition and global Modernism. read more »
Letters to a Young Curator
The Morgan Library displays van Gogh’s fiery correspondence with his promoter Émile Bernard. read more »
Chelsea Explained
SoHo Museum Flees Yuppies, as the Met Goes For Baroque
A few years back, Robert Hughes, former art critic for Time magazine and Goya biographer, wrote that sculptor Martin Puryear (b. 1941) was America’s greatest living artist, and damned if Mr. Hughes wasn’t close to the mark. read more »
The MetPod Hits Shuffle
Vermeer, Hals and the whole Dutch crew, remixed. read more »
Stranger Than Dreams
Joseph Cornell’s newly published journal doesn’t penetrate the enigma of this wistful loner from Queens. read more »
Von Bülow Fund Yields Beautiful Nobodies
The Morgan Library calls up the B-team of 18th-century art—to surprising effect. read more »
Paris Chronicle
Nostalgia vies with boredom in Eugène Atget’s desolate cityscapes. read more »
Then They Take Berlin
The Neue Galerie’s latest showstopper is a sterling example of Expressionist style. read more »
The Poky Academy Gets Impulsive
A traditionalist stronghold still ponders the place of abstraction in American art. read more »
The New York School’s Left Bank Campus
Genuine Jerry Mulligans whistled the postwar chanson américaine. read more »
Painters Shape Up for Summer
For once! An off-season group show that actually makes sense. read more »
Is It Art, Or....
MoMA equivocates on a fundamental question. read more »
Nothin’ Like the Old School
A Noble’s Notebooks
The library of a Renaissance duke arrives at the Morgan. read more »
The Softer Side of Steel
Perfect Circles
Serrated Edges
Neo Rauch’s Fractured Fables
Cloudy With a Chance of Apocalypse
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