Peggy Roalf
By Peggy Roalf Thursday November 15, 2018
Anxiety and alienation were the existential problem of early 20th-century Europe, informing the shift from realism to Surrealism, and from representation to abstraction. The sculptor Alberto Giacometti saw himself somewhat apart from current trends: a realist attempting the “impossible task” [his words] of representing the appearance of things as he saw them. Impossible, as for him the foundational quest was to capture the ungraspable essence … Read the full Story >>
By Peggy Roalf Thursday January 23, 2020
While sex in cinema [Hollywood-made anyway] has been nearly absent for
more than a decade, it thankfully still maintains a home in the world of fashion. On a tip from a Paris cohort I am delighted to present a new book from Kahl Editions, Alice Rosati’s I am a Mermaid, prints from which are on display at Galerie
Charraudeau, rue Bonaparte, … Read the full Story >>
By Peggy Roalf Thursday February 20, 2020
In 1956, the sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) was invited by the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to submit a design for a monumental sculpture for the new International Arrivals Building they were designing for Idlewild Airport [now JFK], the world's first large-scale international airport. The totemic column he proposed (above, front) suggests human aspiration for the cosmos and was envisioned as carved from granite … Read the full Story >>
By Peggy Roalf Monday December 30, 2019
Anniversaries are probably celebrated more by publishers than by
lovers—so as a book-lover I’m taking this opportunity to end the year by celebrating a book that came into my hands a few weeks ago. The book, Isamu Noguchi: A
Sculptor’s World (Steidl 2018) has actually been following me all year, beginning with the preview of Epic Abstraction at The Met on December 10, … Read the full Story >>
By Peggy Roalf Wednesday December 26, 2018
Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera, which opened at The Metropolitan Museum of Art last week, is a collection-based survey of painting, sculpture, assemblage, and drawing from the 1940s into the 21st century. The show, which was recently trashed by two prominent New York critics, casts a spell on viewers through the stunning effects achieved in the first two galleries, which honor the heady … Read the full Story >>
By Peggy Roalf Wednesday May 8, 2019
Currently
on view at Alexander + Bonin Gallery is Bella Figura, an exhibition of new work by Willie Cole. Cole’s assemblages of found objects, such as irons, bicycles, water bottles, and
women’s shoes, offer a multivalent commentary on gender, consumerism, sexuality and African-American identity. A central facet of Cole’s work since the 1980s has been his
deployment of high-heeled shoes, which he has recast into pieces … Read the full Story >>
By Peggy Roalf Wednesday October 30, 2019
The art of ceramic sculpture
has lately become more visible in New York, thanks to works by the Italian master Lucio Fontana on view at The Met last fall, and Bay Area outlaws Peter Voulkos and Ron Nagel seen in galleries this
year. A new exhibition of pieces by the French artists Andrée and Michel Hirlet, which opened last week at Dobrinka Salzman Gallery, brings mid-century … Read the full Story >>
By Peggy Roalf Friday November 30, 2018
Marco Palli, a New York-based artist who hails from Venezuela, recently completed a major sculpture commission in Malaga, Spain, which will open to the public next summer. He is currently engaged in an independent studies program at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture, where he received his MFA in June. Following the NYSS Open Studios, two weeks ago, we sat down … Read the full Story >>
By Peggy Roalf Thursday February 6, 2020
Marco Palli, a New York-based sculptor from Venezuela, opened an exhibition of new work at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture (NYSS) last week. The show honors the Larry Einbender Travel Award, which sponsored his anthropological research in Europe last fall. As a friend and colleague who often writes on the subject, he graciously agreed to meet in the gallery … Read the full Story >>
