Review Roundup

Jeff Koons at the Met (-Oct. 26)

"...three wonderful, previously unexhibited works... mischievously meaningful.. The biggest problem is scale. ...intellectually and sensuously exciting objects — 'Balloon Dog' is a masterpiece..." - Ken Johnson/NYTimes

"...the manifest content of the three sculptures is one of shrill, slightly unbalanced exuberance. ... Indeed, of all the sculptures displayed on the Met's roof garden during the past 11 summers, it is difficult to recall any others that looked quite as wan and feeble, quite as toothless..." - James Gardner/NYSun

"Does the artworld really need another high-profile showcase for Jeff Koons' faux inflatables?... I enjoyed that piece, in spite of ... the profundity that museum curators like to ascribe to these baubles. I'd sooner rely on Koons, who told reporters that his works are about 'joy.'" - Lee Rosenbaum/CultureGrrl


Dargerism at the American Folk Art Museum (-Sept. 21)

"...enlightening but problematic... A problem is that none of this exhibition’s contemporary artists, although worthy on their own merits, are in the same league as Darger. Yet this turns out to be a good thing. Seeing Darger among other artists brings into focus what makes him so singular." - Ken Johnson/NYTimes

"Whatever the merits of the other artists in this show—and some are better than others—hanging them alongside Darger’s scrolled vistas comes off at times as an exercise in rebottling lightning. ...paying homage to him hazards mere imitation or worse—a canonization that drains his work of its ineffable qualities. Some of the artists here fall into one or both of these traps; the best avoid them altogether." - Howard Halle/TONY


Asa Ames at the American Folk Art Museum (-Sept. 14)

"Ames’s artistry has a distinct personality. His work is full of signature tics, like his careful carvings of his subjects’ hair or ears. ... Ames’s inspirations clearly included the portraits that itinerant painters were making during this period, but translating these wonderfully stiff, often emotionally fraught images into three dimensions gives them an added sense of life." - Roberta Smith/NYTimes


Tomma Abts at the New Museum (-June 29)

"She’s pretty cool. Her one-of-a-kind (though all of a type) compositions deploy serpentines, polygons, rays, and other generic forms in schemes of astringent color: worried red, disgruntled gray-green, caffeinated peach. ... The effects feel smart: painting about painting like thinking about thinking, to no end beyond enjoyment. Most of all, Abts is at pains to evade associations with both the visible world and other art. Her success is a negative triumph that appeals to a post-post-painting generation..." - Peter Schjeldahl/New Yorker


Murakami at the Brooklyn Museum (-July 13)

"The colourful, slick canvases are technically impressive, but they have all the emotional weight of the 'go-faster' stripes you see on cars. Even his largest and most dynamic works fail to move..." - The Economist


El Greco to Velázquez at the MFA (Boston) (-July 27)

"...a rich, uneven stew of an exhibition... What saves the show from being merely a hodgepodge of Spanish treasures can be summed up in a word: realism." - Ken Johnson/NYTimes