Blog
January 15, 2018, 10:36am
You Had Me At Hello: 150 Contemporary Artworks That Altered My Consciousness - Part 3
I look at a lot of art. Some of it good, some of it bad. Every once in a while, I come across artwork that fundamentally changes me, even if I don’t understand it at the time. A friend of mine recently asked me which works had had the greatest impact on me over the years, so I compiled my thoughts. This is not a greatest hits list and many artists I love are not included in it. These are all works that have been, for whatever reason, seared into my brain. To be honest, there are a number of artists on this list whose overall practice I am not a particular fan of, yet, they got to me at least once. – Steven Zevitas, Publisher
January 07, 2018, 10:35am
You Had Me At Hello: 150 Contemporary Artworks That Altered My Consciousness - Part 2
I look at a lot of art. Some of it good, some of it bad. Every once in a while, I come across artwork that fundamentally changes me, even if I don’t understand it at the time. A friend of mine recently asked me which works had had the greatest impact on me over the years, so I compiled my thoughts. This is not a greatest hits list and many artists I love are not included in it. These are all works that have been, for whatever reason, seared into my brain. To be honest, there are a number of artists on this list whose overall practice I am not a particular fan of, yet, they got to me at least once. – Steven Zevitas, Publisher
January 01, 2018, 10:31am
You Had Me At Hello: 150 Contemporary Artworks That Altered My Consciousness - Part 1
I look at a lot of art. Some of it good, some of it bad. Every once in a while, I come across artwork that fundamentally changes me, even if I don’t understand it at the time. A friend of mine recently asked me which works had had the greatest impact on me over the years, so I compiled my thoughts. This is not a greatest hits list and many artists I love are not included in it. These are all works that have been, for whatever reason, seared into my brain. To be honest, there are a number of artists on this list whose overall practice I am not a particular fan of, yet, they got to me at least once. – Steven Zevitas, Publisher
December 13, 2017, 10:30am
Miami Art Week 2017 Roundup
Another week of art, and pretty much whatever else, in Miami is in the books. This year, I participated in the amazing UNTITLED art fair, which has been gaining ground as a “must see” fair for serious collectors. As always, I took the opportunity to get out to visit other fairs, museums and private collections. There was a lot of good energy in Miami and a lot of strong artwork to be seen. - Steven Zevitas, Publisher
Ugo Rondinone
December 01, 2017, 9:11am
Making it to the Big Stage: New American Paintings Alumni on View at Art Basel Miami 2017
I have said it before, but one of my greatest joys these days is watching the careers of artists featured in New American Paintings explode. Working with curators, we review the work of more than 6000 artists every year and try to identify those who are exceptional. We take this job VERY seriously.
The way the art world is structured these days, there is, perhaps, no bigger stage to present your work than Art Basel Miami. Thousands of art lovers attend each year and just about every major collector and curator from around the world is there. There are at least two-dozen of our alumni on view this year, which is extraordinary. Some of these artists, such as Jordan Casteel and Loie Hollowell, have gained international attention just in the past twelve months. If you receive New American Paintings, as hundreds of collectors and curators do, you would have discovered their work before they entered the gallery system. Join us. – Steven Zevitas, Publisher
November 27, 2017, 10:07am
A Conversation: Katherine Bradford
There is a place, a safe place, a new place, somewhere other than where we are. A horizon, hazy like memories, colorful like wild dreams. Guided by a soft glow, carefree bodies drift afloat in an infinite ether. In the midst of cultural upheaval, Katherine Bradford steadily paints a path through a fantastical world, spared from the troubles of ours. On the occasion of her first solo museum show, and as part of the phenomenal series of FOCUS shows at The Modern in Fort Worth curated by Alison Hearst, Katherine and I had the chance to revisit with each other and have a conversation. - Arthur Peña, Dallas Contributor
November 18, 2017, 9:11am
John McAllister: Shimmering Surface, Phosphorescent Undertow
Beauty is a troublesome thing; but pleasure is even worse. Beauty offers ecstasy in redemptive and occasionally bittersweet truths. Pleasure, on the other hand, is grounded in desire, and desire invites all manner of perilous things. Like a riptide snaking its way towards shore, pleasure cloaks itself as beauty, luring the unsuspecting in and then drawing them out to sea. - Alan Pocaro, Chicago Contributor
John McAllister | botanic haunting soft-static, Installation View. Photo Courtesy of Shane Campbell Gallery
October 10, 2017, 12:51pm
Cassie Marie Edwards: The Porcelain Menagerie
What they lack in accuracy—or, like, even resemblance—they more than make up for with essence, with vibe, you know?, the kind of exaggerated impossible realness one finds in boardwalk caricaturists and political cartoonists and magical realists that serves as shorthand and signature and x-ray and fMRI all at once … the owl, white as terror and blank as fear, for example, the cold, clean lack of hue that instantly calls to mind Empire, logic, rhetoric, chin tucked and beak silent under brows pointed as the tip of the spear, his wing falling across his shoulder and back like a pallium, a majestic senatorial little creature, from Minerva's court to the curio cabinet … or take whatever beast that is, with its haughty pout and crimson lip, tarantula leg eye lashes and pink bow, perhaps a puppy but reading more as a kitten—anatomy be damned!—as she most definitely possess that ruling feline trait, the intoxicating insouciance with which they have courted our love and desire for approval for centuries, that fickle heart blown out, amplified, drawn across her lips, looking like the love interests that would drive old Tom to mutilate himself in search of a living gift … and then the lesser critters of the copse and field, the squirrels and rabbits and chipmunks and fawns and field mice, arrested and frozen—animals which vibrate with anxious muscle and survival instinct—and finally able to be examined, loved, doted on, adored, those fleeting moments when one locks eyes before the animal in questions dashes away, your lingering love banging like a chestburster against its ribcage, tearing through yards and hedges while you are tearing with unrequited affections, well, we've fixed them, haven't we, all of them, twisted nature yet again—and not without true ecological impact, as is, being the mightiest of earth's creatures, our wont—and created bespoke wild for the everyday person, a one-time cost collection of pets to keep in the home, evoking both recoils and coos, the porcelain menagerie…- B. David Zarley, Chicago Contributor
Cassie Marie Edwards | Uninterested, oil on canvas, 2017. 16 x 16 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
September 17, 2017, 9:23am
EXPO Chicago 2017 Highlights
EXPO Chicago, like many of its art fair counterparts, contains the requisite grabby, show-stoppers we’ve come to expect. However, after the initial lure of the spectacle fades, the eye begins to locate the stronger, more contemplative works emerging from the depths of the exhibitor booths. The works of these six artists are prime examples of pieces that reward a slower viewing, that expand, deepen and reveal more, the longer you look. – Robin Dluzen, Chicago Contributor
Elise Ferguson | Bats, pigmented plaster on MDF, 40" x 30"
July 12, 2017, 8:39am
Positive Mass: Chris Uphues at Linda Warren Projects
It's radiant, really, fucking radiant in that flat-flash, bursting way, the terrible beautiful brilliance of a blank screen or the momentary dawning of a second, subjected sun—wrought by us, meant for us, heat and power of the kind which makes people gods—over a blighted Pacific atoll, radiant and giving off a palpable …vibe, a kind of psychic heat, Heavy Sunshine, buzzing from the apian engine which drives it with the cosmic exigency which only derives from density, an immensely dense little star of positivity, happy imagery—flowers, mountains, clouds, houses, bees, bunnies, books, baseballs, brick facades, bananas, watermelon slices, apples and pineapples and mushrooms, computer monitors, keys, clocks, lampshades, pyramids, the majority made animate, all gaping eyes and content smiles stretching across their faces like cats in a sunbeam—condensing into a heavy star, loosed now and setting in to a dark sea obliterating, by virtue of its weight, all that lays before it, so long as any wavelength still finds its mark among the rods and cones; a washing over of giddy happiness, all of the sudden made manifest—like the soft dolphin clicking which makes background radiation real—by an ecosystem fed by the heavy sunshine, lapping up those vibes, spilling out from the walls and onto the floors, grass, green grass, too-green grass, the putt-putt Eden which will never die and upon which sprout fungi whose life cycles are not derived from the decay of matter, but instead of inhibitions, fears, doubts, angers, hatreds, anxieties, all manner of varieties of the grossly negative which stick, plaque-like, to the brain, and all of which are obliterated—that's the only word, the proper word—by the heavy sunshine of the radiant little dense positivity star, burned and devoured in the light of weaponized joy, the kind which dissolves people into paroxysmal saline puddles of tears and teeth, gratitude etched across each grin by benevolent, indomitable force…– B. David Zarley, Chicago Contributor