This week, we present a pair of slightly less brief In Brief reviews of New York gallery shows on view through the start of summer. For his Critics' Table debut, David Rimanelli reacts with deep feeling in his consideration of a group of top-notch, career-spanning works by Willem de Kooning. And Johanna Fateman lauds an overlooked body of controversial work from the 1970s by the artist and Throbbing Gristle-member Cosey Fanni Tutti at Maxwell Graham.
Willem de Kooning
Gagosian | 555 West 24th Street
Through June 24, 2025
Trying now to write up the de Kooning show at Gagosian, I confront my ironic, perhaps inevitable, dilemma: He’s just so vast and huge and improbable and convincing, how could he not fail in my eyes when even Jesus Christ and Dante did? My “favorite” painter, whom I “blame” for my early fall into contemporary art (for my stupid career, “the art critic”), de Kooning, with his acres of masterpieces, is responsible for just too much beauty altogether. Yet, this show, “Endless Painting,” curated by Cecilia Alemani—even if its title and the unease suggested by endlessness count as interpretive pleasures—is dreary, pointless, almost (ridiculous me) embarrassing. How can this be possible?
