Barry Schwabsky Boeken

New York-based Dana Schutz is widely considered one of the most talented painters of her generation.   American art critic Jerry Saltz has praised Schutz for her "daredevil style and anarchic freedom." Viewed by both critics and her peers as the ultimate painter’s painter, her canvases are filled with a lush, boldly painted cast of characters that share the bravado and oddness of Paul Gauguin, Philip Guston, and the German Expressionists. These figures populate the artist’s distinctive post-apocalyptic narratives, which are at once playful and comic and dark and foreboding. Respected art writer and critic Barry Schwabsky considers the work of this young but prolific artist’s career in its entirety, delving deep into the rich themes that make Dana Schutz one of the most important artists of her generation.

A collection of writings on art by Barry Schwabsky. “Many consider Barry Schwabsky to be the critic on painting today, even if he does write copiously on other art forms,” write editors Rob Colvin and Sherman Sam in their foreword to this selection of Schwabsky's writings. Written since the turn of the millennium, the texts in The Oberver Effect include meditations on the broader context of painting today alongside reflections on such well-known American painters as Alex Katz, Kerry James Marshall, Nicole Eisenman, and Dana Schutz, as well as practitioners from Europe and beyond—Bernard Frize, Tal R, and Ha Chonghyun among them. As Colvin and Sam point out, the book “documents a dialogue between abstraction and the image” in which “images serve less to represent their described subject than to articulate the sort of painting each one desires to be.”

The book features insightful texts by Barry Schwabsky, Kevin Power, and Omar Pascual, each offering a distinct perspective on contemporary art and culture. Through their writing, they explore themes of identity, creativity, and the evolving nature of artistic expression. The contributions provide a rich dialogue that encourages readers to engage with the complexities of modern artistic practices and their societal implications.

Amid the turmoil of the pandemic, Barry Schwabsky turned to poetry as a means of grappling with life's uncertainties. His new collection, written during the lockdown, captures the profound discord of a historical moment, blending intimate feelings with broader existential inquiries. Drawing on influences like the Third Century BCE text, his work resonates with themes of hopelessness and resilience. The poems, rich with emotional depth, ultimately reveal themselves as love poems, even in their darkest reflections.

Gillian Carnegie's work is distinguished by its unique emotional depth and an uncanny quality that sets it apart in contemporary painting. This publication offers a comprehensive exploration of her artistry, highlighting the subtle yet powerful impact of her creations. Through a calm and introspective approach, Carnegie's paintings evoke a profound response, showcasing her distinctive contribution to the art world.

Alex Katz is a prominent contemporary painter from New York, recognized since the 1960s for his striking portraits of elegant women. His work features masterful use of bold colors and precise techniques, making him a significant figure in the art world.

"Ungestüme Kompositionen" explores the vibrant landscapes of Shara Hughes, drawing inspiration from renowned artists like Matisse and van Gogh. This monograph offers a comprehensive overview of her work, showcasing her bold reinterpretation of traditional landscape painting. Hughes is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and has exhibited widely.

Leading art critic explores the connections between art’s past and present Contemporary art sometimes pretends to have made a clean break with history. In The Perpetual Guest, poet and critic Barry Schwabsky demonstrates that any robust understanding of art’s present must also account for the ongoing life and changing fortunes of its past. Surveying the art world of recent decades, Schwabsky attends not only to its most significant newer faces—among them, Kara Walker, Thomas Hirschhorn, Ai Weiwei, Chris Ofili, and Lorna Simpson—but their forebears as well, both near (Jeff Wall, Nancy Spero, Dan Graham, Cindy Sherman) and more distant (Velázquez, Manet, Matisse, and the portraitists of the Renaissance). Schwabsky’s rich and subtle contributions illuminate art’s present moment in all its complexity: shot through with determinations produced by centuries of interwoven traditions, but no less open-ended for it.

A dynamic overview of the best new contemporary painting from around the world. The first volume of Vitamin P, published in 2002, inaugurated a vibrant period for painting. Since its publication, a whole new generation of painters has emerged, some inspired by the artists who appeared in that book, others taking cues from new sources. Vitamin P2 introduces this new wave of painters to the world. The vast medium of painting continues to be a central pillar of artistic practice, and Vitamin P2 presents the outstanding artists who are currently engaging with and pushing the boundaries of the medium. Over 80 international critics, artists and curators have nominated the 115 artists who have made a fresh, unique or innovative contribution to recent painting. All of the artists in Vitamin P2 have recently emerged onto the international scene, and none appeared in the first Vitamin P. An introduction by Barry Schwabsky, who also wrote the introduction for Vitamin P, provides a broad overview of recent developments in the medium while also looking towards its future.

The imposing installation Waterfalls & Clouds consists of three sculptures by the Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone (b. Brunnen, Switzerland, 1964; lives and works in New York) and nineteen paintings by the American Pat Steir (b. Newark, NJ, 1940; lives and works in New York). The three large gray monoliths of concrete, sand, and gravel bear the titles Faces, Look, and Twisted and are part of a series of twenty works created in 2018. They are surrounded by nineteen tall and narrow black oil paintings titled Flags for Ugo #1 through #19 (2021); with colorful or white paint streaming down the canvases, they hark back to Steir' s Waterfall series from the 1980s. A symbiotic relationship connects the works: the sculptures, in which erosion is integral to the art, embody time, while the pictures symbolize gravity and hence nature as such.