Anj Smith @ Hauser & Wirth through 10/02/2010

Fourteen nearly miniature, Dutch-looking, post-apocalyptic oils are each encrusted with a miniature sculpture. Most depict wan, androgynous figures in a wasteland populated by tiny Bosch-like visages and skulls, before a distant, darkening horizon. Clad in tattered gauzy fabrics, they are "sheltered" by banner, curtain and tent-like objects. Patched together from the remains of our civilization's T-shirts every stray thread and cord in the pictures draws a parallel hopelessness. The works seem to illustrate an apocalypse expected 20 years ago, with scraps of Papa Smurf and Mickey Mouse and one bearing the tragically obsolete slogan "hang in there."

Ray Johnson @ Roth 160A E. 70th through 3/27/10

"Dear Max, Dear Ray, Dear Vince"

One hundred twenty six collages and letters define the smallest possible sub-culture. Each work is excruciatingly personal and trivial, each rings with insecurity and freedom, deprecation and pride, both threatening and disarming, polished and haphazard. In Johnson's "correspondence school" works even genre is in doubt. The appearance of surrealism is comically ridiculed. The make-up of Johnson's imaginary audience jars with hilarity. Insignificant clippings are modified (in every degree) as though some great meaning is immanent. Inside and opaque jokes and references parody epistle-craft and psychosis. The art world is abjectly longed for while bureaucracy is elevated to an art form.

Alice Neel @ Zwirner and Wirth through 6/20/2009

The nudes exhibit expressionism's primitive delineation, stylized anatomy and unvarying black outline,  a mote fending off the ground. Neel treats the visages of her subjects symbolically. Their hands and feet are contorted. Their meager, bohemian interiors are joyless. The compositions can be rich and complex. None of these works display Neel's signature style, but portraits done over the next 50 years are marked with the the same tropes. The revolution in Neel's work was the background, where sketchy naturalism flattens, exhausting the entire vocabulary of abstraction.  Throughout her career Neel did with portraits everything it was possible to do with painting

Art-99; a 99word review.

Mimmo Rotella @ Knoedler & Co. through July 31, 2009

One room contains 9 sections of layered bills or collages made to appear so, all 1958. The acidic colorization of some papers is naturalistic  in these abstractions. In another room most works are modified bills and enlarged 60's media clippings with hand painted shapes and subtractive collage. There are three JFK pieces, one from the Zapruder film. In two double portraits from posters advertising a Kennedy appearance a blank piece of corrugated paper covers the top of his heads, as if to bandage the wounds captured in the film. The image juxtaposition of photo collage serves political not surreal ends.

Art-99; a 99 word review.

Keizo Kitajima @ Roth through June 6, 2009

The multiple prints on most supports is mirrored in staggered groupings of works that allow for another level of juxtaposition. The resulting confrontation with the viewer is also seen in the frontal address of the subjects of these prints from a series of photographs taken in Okinawa, 1980. The jagged hang, the high contrast of screen prints, the lowbrow, varied supports, not to mention the subject matter of the images, all contribute to a street grit. Japanese prostitutes and American servicemen behaving badly address the camera out of drunkenness and abandon as if the night will go on forever.

Art-99; a 99 word review.

Gary Baldwin @ Open Source through June 4, 2009.

These 15 small, color photographic portraits, hung to suggest missing images, all beg a little explanation; observe the quizzical, hostile or far away expressions, a bleeding gash, an eye bandage. Each is a study in intimacy in its own way. Most subjects confront the camera and collaborate in their characterization. The rest evidence comfort with the photographer. The compositions are determined and complex. The masterpiece of the show is a picture of a blond boy (Hugo) wearing a striped shirt, sitting in Viking-inspired arm chair, sipping orange juice, lit by a late afternoon light shaped by a window shade.

Art-99; a 99 word review.

Cordy Ryman @ Next with DCKT through May 5, 2009.

Ryman's craft comes to the fore inversly. There is a contemplated crudity to the finish of these small abstract works and a studied carelessness of execution. Paint is applied both mechanically and blissfully to ad hoc, raw wood supports. Colorization is ruled by a giddy formula; earthy tones perturbed by fluorescents. There is something comical in the sloppy notation combined with hue hyberbole. But great care is also demonstrated. Some flat shapes are carefully delineated and there is attention to layering. Many works exhibit a tiny homage to the underpaint, an unexpected wink from a savant of nonchalance.