Volume 35, Number 3: Painting

August 2016
#139

In what has become an annual event Border Crossings has just published a big issue on PAINTING where the medium is the message: varied, rich and bold, historic and absolutely contemporary.

Jonathan Lasker’s work is a master class of desire and control where the eye is the tactile, seeking organ and his astute knowledge is the agent. Neil Jenney is the consummate, beguiling story-teller. Bad Painting has never looked this good. Joanne Tod’s persuasive skill as a painter has us doubling back to confirm what we’re seeing as she moves from canvas, to architecture, to porcelain, but all of it painting.

With Natalka Husar’s new work, in part a tribute to her mother’s fine skills as a seamstress, we see recto/verso — the same and different and diptych panels become seamless wholes with the aid of a zipper.

Two promising young artists are introduced in this issue: Ambera Wellmann – look at her paintings and you’ll find yourself “sunk.” She’s on this year’s RBC Painting short list as is Brian Hunter who does his best to box us up and keep things open.

David Elliott’s interview is a compelling story of a life of commitment to work at the highest level. Michael Merrill’s painterly dedication to working a subject through is engaging in its consistency and Joan Jonas has been guiding viewers through her relevant spaces for decades. The Met opened its new museum at the Breuer on Madison Avenue with an ambitious exhibition titled “Unfinished.” Painter and writer John Kissick has cleverly selected three significant painters to stand in for the whole.

No one paints the state of events in contemporary America better than Eric Fischl. We take a look at his recent and astute assessment on canvas from his exhibition Rift/Raft at Skarstedt in New York. Arlene Shechet’s engagement and collaborations with the Arnhold Collection of Meissen porcelains at The Frick Collection incorporate her own porcelain sculptures in a small, seismic, heartbreakingly beautiful intervention.

And of course, there is a broad-ranging section of current reviews…

Subscribe now and receive a free tote!

Buy Now

Table of Contents

  • Bordernotes

  • What We Talk About When We Talk About Writing About Art Meeka Walsh
  • Borderviews

  • Painting Paintings
  • Figuring Forms
  • The Beauty of Being Boxed In
  • Bordercolumn

  • A Man For All Seasons The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger Robert Enright
  • Interviews

  • Certain Things in a Certain Way An Interview with Jonathan Lasker Robert Enright, Meeka Walsh
  • The World of Art According to Neil Jenney Robert Enright, Meeka Walsh
  • Intuitive Discipline An Interview with Joanne Tod Robert Enright, Meeka Walsh
  • A Person of Parts An Interview with David Elliott Robert Enright
  • Articles

  • Utterly Undone Some incomplete thoughts on three unfinished paintings John Kissick
  • Simmering History The Recent Paintings of Natalka Husar Peggy Gale
  • Beauty and the Deferring and Balancing Beast The Paintings of Ambera Wellmann Meeka Walsh
  • Subversive Radiance The Art of Michael Merrill James D. Campbell
  • Resonant Gestures The Art of Joan Jonas Tracy Valcourt
  • Crossovers

  • Sarah Anne Johnson Anna Kovler
  • Karel Funk Craig Love
  • Howard Podeswa Dan Adler
  • Edmund Alleyn Benjamin Klein
  • Eugénie Cliche James D. Campbell
  • Peter Aspell Robin Laurence
  • Mary Heilmann Paul Carey-Kent
  • Karen Asher Courtney R Thompson
  • “Patrick Staff: The Foundation” Christine Walde
  • Nep Sidhu Robin Laurence