Megan Craig in New York

Edouard Vuillard Bullish Bidders Pierre Bonnard Daniel Richter Deal or No Deal? Trophy Hunting Home Again Monet Record, Disappointing Total at Christie’s Imp/Mod Sale

Send a letter to the Editor

Save to Del.icio.us Digg this

"Rich’s first solo show is hugely impressive. For one thing, he has managed to make political paintings that are timely and timeless at once. His slick, enamel-on-wood images of architecture in the Middle East look like a grown-up’s Lego kit (build your own Baghdad or Dubai). The paintings are meticulously crafted, and yet they retain a sense of touch that belies the anonymous video-gaming, surveillance aesthetic Rich plays on. A black cord snakes lazily over the wall of a gray pit in Hussein’s Palace, teal paint peels away from the defaced image of Saddam Hussein in Saddam, a flash of red creeps into the infinite grays of East Jerusalem. The paintings have the focus of Mondrian’s grids and the sorts of details — miniature trees, light posts, window frames — you find only in model train sets. The vacant spaces he depicts have a Hopper-like desolation made more poignant and disturbing by the recognition that his subjects are drawn from newspapers, television, and the Internet. Rich’s show is a serious meditation on the ethics and politics of building and bombing, but it’s also a joy to see."

4. Nathalie Djurberg at Zach Feuer Gallery, through January 24

"I love this show. It is truly bizarre. The holidays are probably the best time to sit down to Djurberg’s initially charming and ultimately disturbing video I Found Myself Alone. Her claymation is endlessly appealing, and Hans Berg’s music hits exactly the right balance between the sugar plum fairy and the twilight zone. The star of the show is a black licorice ballerina with pins through her shoes, pirouetting through plates of marshmallows and an endless array of gooey cookies and sweets. She has blood-red lips that peel apart into an unnerving grin, revealing two rows of sharp, tiny clay teeth. As she goes from graceful to clumsy, knocking everything over, smearing black chocolate over the whole table, I felt I was seeing a metaphor for what it feels like to be an artist — to start out poised, with everything in place, a clean white surface, only to find oneself at the end entangled in chaos, making a mess. There are also racial and political readings of this video, and as I watched it the second time I felt like there might be endless things to see and say about it. It is smart, sweet, and surprising: the anti-Nutcracker for anyone who likes a tea party with an edge."   

5. Andrew Forge/Fairfield Porter: Works on Paper at Betty Cuningham Gallery, through January 31

"I had to pick this show, because I learned to draw from Andrew Forge. He was an incredible teacher, and I see his generosity in every dot of his work. Porter’s pencil-and-ink sketches and Forge’s watercolor dots and dashes are quiet and reflective. It takes some time to look at all of them, and it’s a challenge to look without trying to read them — but it’s well worth the effort. After you linger here for a while, you can walk up one block to Trenton Doyle Hancock’s "Fear" at James Cohan Gallery. Here are Forge’s dots writ large in a Pac Man–infused, exuberant spectacle — an instant remedy for any winter blues."

6. Andy Goldsworthy: Storm King Wall at Storm King Art Center, ongoing

"The time to see this is in the winter, when no one is around, and you can appreciate the gray, gold, purple, and white of upstate winter. Goldsworthy’s wall capped with a few inches of fresh snow and winding through a choir of naked trees is one of the most beautiful things around."