Paintings, like poetry or music, are essential nutrients that help people sustain healthy lives. They’re not recreational pleasures or sidelines. They are tools that help us grasp the diversity of the world and its history, and explore the emotional capacities with which we navigate that world. They illuminate, they humble, they nurture, they inspire. They teach us to use our eyes and to know ourselves by knowing others. If New York’s legions of irresistible paintings could sing, these hills would be magnificently alive with the sound of their music.
— Roberta Smith, “Landscape and Still Lifes of New Territories,” New York Times December 30, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/arts/design/31smith.html?ref=design
Maybe it is time for a new, less militant metaphor. One possibility is a perpetually expanding umbrella, where everything — a historical moment, a museum’s reach and our consciousness — only increases.
— Roberta Smith “With a Jury of Their Peers.” On the new show, ‘Abstract Expressionist New York’ at MoMa. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/arts/design/01abex.html?_r=1&ref=design
too many people — most obviously women — are just beginning to make their mark with [painting] and are becoming active in its public dialogue—” for it to be left for dead.
— Roberta Smith Painting, Still Lively in the 21st Century: It’s Not Dry Yet. Short essay published in the NYT March 28. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/arts/design/28painting.html
