David Salle | The New York Review of Books

Straight to It, Then

“Everyone has an opinion, but clarity is apparently in short supply.”

May 17, 2025

‘Why Not All These Things at Once?’

The sculptor Arlene Shechet’s work is held together by a combination of stand-up shtick, fairy tales, strong nerves, and high modernist sobriety.

Arlene Shechet: Girl Group

an exhibition at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York, May 4–November 10, 2024. Catalog of the exhibition by Eric Booker, Nora Lawrence, Kate Nesin, Anne Reeve, Arlene Shechet, John P. Stern, and Sheena Wagstaff

May 15, 2025 issue

Follow the Light

Alex Katz took the conventions of realism and merged them with the flatness and scale of Pop Art to paint things seen in the here and now.

Alex Katz: Gathering

an exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, October 21, 2022–February 20, 2023

January 18, 2024 issue

Who Am I? What Am I?

Charles Ray’s ambitious, technologically sophisticated sculptures allow viewers to enjoy figurative realism without the taint of kitsch.

Charles Ray: Figure Ground

an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, January 31–June 5, 2022

December 8, 2022 issue

Going on Her Nerve

The idiosyncratic English artist Rose Wylie makes the process of importing things in the world to the realm of the painted feel exhilarating and new.

May 12, 2022 issue

Rauschenberg in Black and White

The way the artist used images he’d collected in his photographic travels reveals his verve for making drama out of juxtaposition.

December 13, 2020

Object Lessons

Has there ever been an artist more sure of himself than Donald Judd?

Judd

an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, March 1, 2020–January 9, 2021

Donald Judd Writings

edited by Flavin Judd and Caitlin Murray

Donald Judd Interviews

edited by Flavin Judd and Caitlin Murray

December 17, 2020 issue

The Great Amalgamator

Rachel Harrison’s starting point is a feeling of disconnectedness, estrangement, and simmering revolt fed by a finely cultivated disgust.

Rachel Harrison Life Hack

an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, October 25, 2019–January 12, 2020

January 16, 2020 issue

Houdini with a Brush

Charline von Heyl: Snake Eyes

an exhibition at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg, June 22–September 23, 2018; the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium, October 14, 2018–January 13, 2019; and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., November 8, 2018–April 21, 2019

May 9, 2019 issue

The Star of the Silken Screen

Warhol was the first artist to grasp the potential for pattern and rhythm released by the screen-print process

Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again

an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, November 12, 2018–March 31, 2019; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, May 18–September 2, 2019; and the Art Institute of Chicago, October 20, 2019–January 26, 2020

February 21, 2019 issue

Musical Lines

Terry Winters: Facts and Fictions

an exhibition at the Drawing Center, New York City, April 6–August 12, 2018

August 16, 2018 issue

Theater of the Self

The art of Danh Vo is popular and politically engaged, though it’s the opposite of agitprop

Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away

an exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, February 9–May 9, 2018; and the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, August 30–December 2, 2018

May 10, 2018 issue

Art in Free Fall

Laura Owens brings a light touch and a tough mind to a new kind of synthetic painting.

Laura Owens

an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, November 10, 2017–February 4, 2018; the Dallas Museum of Art, March 25–July 29, 2018; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, November 4, 2018–March 25, 2019

February 8, 2018 issue