Haber's Art Reviews: Browse by Artist (E-H)

Pick from More Artists

John Haber
in New York City

Preceding names!

Eakins

Does realism stand for representational truth, a style and a means of representation, or a period or two in art history? A tour from Giotto and Jan van Eyck to the American Realism of Thomas Eakins, George Bellows, and John Sloan leaves open the puzzles that Bo Bartlett and others are solving today.

Thomas Eakins keeps returning to bare flesh and dark shadows. Has he bowed to the tradition of the nude or taken art to its naked future?

What does the Met lose when it draws together its holdings of Thomas Eakins? So much for the provocation and feminism behind his realism.

Eggleston

When William Eggleston brought color photography to MOMA, what seemed so crude—the medium, the feel of a snapshot, or the South? By looking beyond the foreground, he broke with documentary photography and the "decisive moment."

Eisler

With Judith Eisler, Bill Henson, Nathalie Djurberg, and Nan Goldin, art gets painfully explicit about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. So why do their human actors vanish so easily into forests, fairy tales, claymation, the blur of a picture tube, or death?

Eliasson

A retrospective spans MOMA and P.S. 1, but which has the classrooms? Olafur Eliasson sends one back to school for interdisciplinary studies.

Is that a work of art, a musical instrument, or a science experiment? Only Olafur Eliasson knows for sure.

Ellison

I know better than to identify characters in a novel with their author, at least not if they are more than half mad. So why was Ralph Ellison so invisible at his death?

Elmgreen

How did so much earth and the dark corners of New York streets get inside? Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset create an underground End Station, Peter Wegner a paper labyrinth, and Mike Bouchet a pungent alternative to Walter de Maria, while emerging artists "Make It Now."

You call this a monument? Ed Ruscha traces the course of empire and Thomas Hirschhorn a world in ruins, while "Monuments for the USA," featuring Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset among so many others, seeks a nation worth remembering.

Emin

Does the Chelsea gallery scene know where the bodies are bodied? Tracey Emin, Wim Delvoye, Gary Hill, Daniel Rozin, and Sam Taylor-Wood may not get real, but they do get physical.

What lies between self-expression and postmodern theater? Probably sex, smashed dishes, and broken promises, plus a visit to Soho along with Sandro Chia, Tracey Emin, Julian Schnabel, and Philip Taaffe.

Ensor

James Ensor paints his first carnival figures at age twenty. Does he lie behind each and every mask—or no one at all?

Epes

Do men still dismiss feminism as either ladylike or consumed in anger? An installation by Maria Epes shows why it still lies at the heart of Postmodernism.

Erlich

Is relational esthetics just a fancy term for a family vacation at Disney World? Carsten Höller confronts one's inner child with a scientist's adult conscience, and neither wins out—but Leandro Erlich offers still more indoor rides and attractions.

Ersser

Can one play at once abstract painter, architect, and voyeur? Cordy Ryman, Claire Seidl, David Ersser, and Christoph Morlinghaus can, but somehow using sculpture or photography.

Ess

How did women end up on both sides of the camera? In photography and video, Barbara Ess, Barbara Crane, and Amy Greenfield fragment the body and the medium.

Evans

Will people maintain their trust in photography, as a passive trace of real, in the digital age? Barbara Savedoff has her doubts, but Walker Evans and Sylvia Mendel may put that trust in question in the first place.

Walker Evans photographed the underside of America. What made him see it with wonderment and respect?

What does a photo album become a lie, and when does it become art? Walker Evans collects postcards, Jem Cohen Polaroids of the city, Patti Smith the veils of Basque country, and Jane Hammond an imaginary tour of Europe.

Did Modernism have a choice, and does the Museum of Modern Art now? In "Making Choices: 1920-1960," Cindy Sherman's shards of an ego, Frank Stella's "The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, and Walker Evans each get to define modern art's first decades of triumph.

Experimental Television Center

A quarter of a century ago, who knew that experimental film was turning into video art ? That may explain why a retrospective of the Experimental Television Center looks so old-fashioned.

Farrin

"Nothing," Georgia O'Keeffe promised, "is less real than realism." So what if abstraction for Laurel Farrin, Ethel Lebenkoff, or Cyrilla Mozenter includes a pizza box, a foot, or a chair?

Cao Fei

When the art scene blends into night life, does art become self-indulgence or directed dreaming? Cao Fei, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Jessica Rankin, Jessica Stockholder, and Salla Tykka each walk the line between light and dark.

Cui Fei

Is there a thread connecting Cui Fei, Amy Cutler, Jonah Groeneboer, and Chiharu Shiota? Their weave catches added dimensions, female communities, private writing, and the viewer.

When does drawing stop and calligraphy or weaving begin? Cui Fei, Paul Glabicki, Lee Mingwei, Léon Ferrari, and Mira Schendel leave art hanging by a thread.

Feininger

In half a century in Germany, Lyonel Feininger moved among caricature, Expressionism, Cubism, and the Bauhaus. Was he just a typical American?

Ferrara

Was there more to women's art in the 1970s than politics? Valerie Jaudon brought pattern and decoration to formalism, while Jackie Ferrara, Nancy Holt, and others created "Decoys, Complexes, and Triggers: Feminism and Land Art."

Ferrari

When does drawing stop and calligraphy or weaving begin? Paul Glabicki, Cui Fei, Lee Mingwei, Léon Ferrari, and Mira Schendel leave art hanging by a thread.

Ferrato

Learning to love photography after sex and the Web? Donna Ferrato, Leigh Ledare, and iheartphotograph.com state their case.

Ferrer

Is race in America a usable past? Rafael Ferrer has gone from painter to Bronx street artist and back, while "Usable Pasts" at the Studio Museum answers with a plural.

Fink

Benjamin Fink, Julie Blackmon, Clark and Pougnaud, Thomas Demand, and Alex Prager make photography at once domestic and fantastic. Can anyone tell what they create, what they stage, what they find, and what they manipulate?

Finley

Is art history really a story about chocolate? Maybe Karen Finley got it right.

D. Fischer

For Robert Storr, conceptual art embodies the excesses of art-world stardom and childish installations. Dan Fischer, Olaf Breuning, and the African Americans in "30 Seconds off an Inch" point instead to conceptual arts in the plural.

R. Fischer

Can one call a trailer park America's home-grown utopian community or another commercial wasteland? Andrea Zittel and her "A-Z Administrative Services" have made plans for your future, but Rob Fischer turns them on their side.

U. Fischer

Can installation art reveal a hidden New York? Urs Fischer, Carlos Amorales, Mike Nelson, and Reynold Reynolds dig deep.

Are Urs Fischer, Gabriel Orozco, and Kitty Kraus minimal, conceptual, or just making a mess? Installations redolent of destruction run into recession austerity.

Did Urs Fischer deliver the most dangerous exhibition of the year or just the sternest warning to visitors? Consider the "Best of 2007" and the year in review.

Fischli and Weiss

Arthur C. Danto calls his essay on Peter Fischli and David Weiss "The Artist as Prime Mover." Why, then, do they, Andy Goldsworthy, avaf, Alexander Lee, and so many others seem intent on trashing the gallery?

Fisher Landau

Why not start your own museum? The Emily Fisher Landau Center, designed by Max Gordon, replays in real time the birth of the modern museum from private collections.

Flavin

With Minimalism, does art surrender to experience, or does the viewer surrender to the art? With a factory redesign by Robert Irwin, 300,000 square feet, and big shows for Dan Flavin, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Andy Warhol, and many more, Dia:Beacon assumes control.

Fontaine

Can political art be numbingly obvious and obscure at the same time? Claire Fontaine, Emory Douglas, Hans Haacke, and Artur Zmijewski give it their best shot.

Foster

What most hurts contemporary art, a lowering of standards in the name of critical theory—or a commodity culture that breeds amnesia about past experiments? A new textbook by Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, and Benjamin Buchloh upsets conservative critics by daring to ask.

Has art become a product of museum advertising, one-of-a-kind genius, or just a lucky accident? For Michael Kimmelman, Lina Bertucci, and Matthew Barney, they all add up to star power, and Hal Foster wants to know why.

British artists—such as Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili, and Sam Taylor-Wood—and New York politicians recycle old scripts, nearly a decade after appropriation art held sway. What accounts for the shock of the not so new, and can a savvy analysis by Hal Foster pin it down?

Foucault

Need a quick primer on Postmodernism, and wonder how anyone can read Michel Foucault? You must be mad.

Foulkes

What distinguishes American Surrealism, and does it come down to Edward Hopper? The Whitney calls it "Real/Surreal," but Llyn Foulkes updates it for Pop Art and LA.

Fowler

Can video art mean more than a dark, empty room? The X-Initiative strands Keren Cytter, Luke Fowler, and Tris Vonna-Michell in Chelsea, while Aernout Mik shoots up eight floors of a museum on video.

Fragonard

What happened when Rococo collided with Enlightenment and revolution? Domenico Tiepolo turned to the New Testament, while Jean Honoré Fragonard literally got drawing off the ground.

Frank

In 1955 a Swiss immigrant set out to discover America. In The Americans, did Robert Frank discover himself, the open road, or the patchwork of the American dream?

Fraser

When does a therapy session, street photography, a police investigation, or a true confession become a fiction—or a lie? Andrea Fraser, Jana Leo, and Hannah Starkey seek the truth.

Frankenthaler

Did followers of Georges Seurat miss the boat to Modernism? From Paul Signac to Helen Frankenthaler and her Lighthouse series, his independence of color has had a sustained influence.

Frecon

If painting is not dead, has abstraction survived as mere recitation? Jennifer Bartlett, Brice Marden, Clare Seidl, and Suzan Frecon try recitatives, additions, overlays, and a heart of gold.

Freedman

Where was Joel Sternfeld before "American Prospects"? Where Jill Freedman in the late 1970s finds tabloid New York, his first pictures find color, a more innocent decade, and four other Americas.

Freeman

Is art devolving into a scary, macho remake of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll? Mike Kelley and Michael Smith take Baby IKKI to Burning Man, "The Horror Show" plays on, and Justin Lowe and Jonah Freeman convert a huge gallery into Black-Acid Co-op.

Freud

Was the greatest case study by Sigmund Freud a lie? When a woman's dreams are put on the couch, free association, artistic freedom, and feminism turn out to have a lot in common.

Is it right to call Sigmund Freud (or Marx or Derrida) a secular Jew? I can answer only for myself.

Is recent photography too familiar or too strange? The Guggenheim calls it "Haunted," or what Sigmund Freud called the uncanny.

D. Fried

Sometimes art aspires to a science experiment. With David Fried, Antony Gormley, Jeppe Hein, Eileen Quinlan, and Mark Sheinkman, is it all done with smoke and mirrors?

M. Fried

Do Chelsea's once idealistic galleries now form a business district—or a theater district? Michael Fried argued that "theatricality" precedes and follows modern art; and he could have been arguing with me as I took his hero, Edouard Manet, to check out such artists as Cindy Sherman, Richard Tsao, castaneda/reiman, Deborah Turville, and Scott Tunick.

Should Michael Fried have meant "Art as Objecthood" as a compliment to Minimalism? Hu Bing, Bill Jenkins, Ted Victoria, and Bill Walton look to ordinary objects for drama and realism.

Friedlander

When Lee Friedlander goes in search of America, does he forget to get out of his car? He presents a dizzying portrait of a nation, not least because it looks so very familiar.

Friedman

Will high-res images replace paintings or just help sell art? Leonardo, The Last Supper, and Tom Friedman meet Photoshop and globalization.

Friedrich

When Anita Brookner looks at Romanticism, she sees only discontents and infinite longings. So what makes the Moonwatchers by Caspar David Friedrich so at home with nature in turmoil, the darkness of night, and the far-away heavens?

Romanticism did not easily sit still—especially Northern Romanticism. What then keeps Caspar David Friedrich and "Room with a View" so safely behind shuttered windows?

Frost

When it comes to gun culture, is political art more about the guns or about culture? Sarah Frost creates a ghostly paper arsenal, while Liz Magic Laser, Henry Taylor, and Darren Bader feel your pain.

Fuller

When chemists detected fullerenes, did they vindicate Buckminster Fuller or commemorate a fantasy? A retrospective reveals him as designer, dreamer, architect, college professor, a snake-oil salesman, and a a prototype for Modernism in America.

What did Isamu Noguchi learn from Buckminster Fuller—art, design, or a vision of the future? "Best of Friends" recovers Fuller for modern art.

Fujimura

Artists never truly paint like their influences, right? Yet the influence of Abstract Expressionism lingers on, not just with Jules Olitski and the late Neil Welliver, but in younger artists who seem almost to channel them—including Makoto Fujimura, Ronnie Landfield, Peter Reginato, Duston Spear, and Joseph Stashkevetch.

Furnas

Does Chelsea's massive fall opening amount to an entertainment event or a model for museums of contemporary art? In 2006, artists could easily grow cynical or messianic, including Jennifer Dalton, Barnaby Furnas, and Matthew Ritchie.

Gachet

Can Gustave Courbet's gravity and Vincent van Gogh's manic highs trace a single path to Modernism? van Gogh's final patron and a sometime painter, Dr. Gachet, shows what their admirers often missed.

Galenson

Can market models distinguish old masters from young geniuses? David W. Galenson applies economics to innovation, but Robyn Love knows the value of art as a gift.

Gallaccio

"They are amazing," writes John Ashbery in his poem "Some Trees." How can still life from Ellen Altfest, an actual dead tree from Anya Gallaccio, and video by Tacita Dean reach for amazement?

Gannis

Can a feminist still laugh at fashion and celebrity? Carla Gannis, Rachel Harrison, Tracey Moffatt and Shannon Plumb dress for success.

Garnett

After five years in Iraq, can art have mere intimations of disaster? Joy Garnett, Deborah Brown, Paul Chan, Lucien Samaha, and Meg Webster reveal the anxious artist.

Gaskell

When Lynda Benglis shares space with Louise Bourgeois, can one tell the good girl from the bad girl? Anna Gaskell and Margaret Murphy prefer not to say.

Gatson

What it mean to act African American? Rico Gatson, Rodney McMillian, and Clifford Owens mix media and performance.

Gaudí

"Barcelona and Modernity: From Gaudí to Dalí" and Spanish Painting from "El Greco to Picasso" both deserve the name "From Picasso to Picasso." But can Barcelona or the Spanish mind really explain any of these artists?

Gauguin

When Paul Gauguin says he likes his women fat and stupid, do his attitudes strike to the core of modern art? Griselda Pollock notices that he and Picasso have a problem, but Modernism may yet play its feminist gambits.

Geisler

Does computer art offer anything at all new, and is anyone buying? After a gallery tour and panel discussion, Kirsten Geisler, John Klima, Mark Napier, and John F. Simon suggest that old news from art and software can still create strange new bedfellows.

Gelitin

Can one conceptual artists from bad boys and museums from big-box stores? Face to face with Gelitin and El Anatsui, Roberta Smith wants to know.

Geller

Has art become more fragile or only a critic's authority? Matthew Geller, Janine Antoni, Amy Bennett, Kevin Hanley, Peter Sarkisian, David Shapiro, and E. E. Smith put them both to the test.

Gentileschi

Can art history rescue Artemisia Gentileschi from a dime-store romance? A retrospective treats her as her father's daughter, but the younger artist gets the last word.

Must a museum expansion extend to the art? Rick Mather at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts stresses civic spaces, but Artemisia Gentileschi fights back.

Géricault

Théodore Géricault took Romanticism out to sea, and artists as late as Edouard Manet kept "Crossing the Channel." Did an era really set its differences aside, or has museum politics displaced artistic and national divisions?

Did Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Modernism make up a single revolution? Drawings follow Jacques-Louis David, Théodore Chassériau, Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, and revolutionary France, decades before Pierre-Auguste Renoir paints fashion at full length.

Gescheidt

Is there really "The Female Gaze," and what could it look like? Alfred Gescheidt, Janine Antoni, and Juergen Teller parse the elements of desire.

Ghiberti

For over twenty-five years, Lorenzo Ghiberti toiled on The Gates of Paradise. Did he also offer a key to the city of Florence?

Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti has a problem with women, not to mention, men, the human form itself, and the art object. What makes them all lie together so easily—and so uneasily—in so familiar a world?

Gifford

Sanford Robinson Gifford and George Inness gave the Hudson River School some of its most visionary landscapes. Did they really find that vision in Europe?

Must a museum sell such assets as paintings by Sanford Robinson Gifford and Frederic Edwin Church? The "Best of 2008" collides with a financial crisis.

Gilbert & George

Does male desire play better in a lonely villa or in East London, with frontal nudity or in suit and tie? Gilbert & George play it as camp, Jesper Just as existential crisis.

Gill

Can repetition become mere showmanship and magic tricks? Gwyneth Leech and Stephen G. Rhodes are still drinking coffee, while Simryn Gill and Noriko Ambe have more discretely layered obsessions.

Gilmore

Art faces lots of traps, from Postmodernism to Sheetrock walls and from gender roles to acts of torture. Kate Gilmore and Jill Magid are breaking out of the box.

Giotto

The Italian Renaissance is supposed to begin with Giotto and burst out with Masaccio, right? Art in Florence wants to prove me half wrong.

These days artists and celebrities can become famous for their passing fame. Cimabue got there first, before Giotto, however—or was it Duccio?

Can the experience of a book stretch from one mind to a household and out to an entire public world? A "Medieval Housebook" suggests how, set alongside shows of "the Medieval world" and of controversial works by Giotto and others from Assisi.

Girodet

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson started a Classicist, but his narratives blend religion, sex, death, and a great deal of kitsch. Does he anticipate Romanticism, Modernism, Postmodernism, or none of the above?

Glabicki

When does drawing stop and calligraphy or weaving begin? Paul Glabicki, Cui Fei, Lee Mingwei, Léon Ferrari, and Mira Schendel leave art hanging by a thread.

Goethe

If Postmodernism wants to ground art historically, why does it keep riffing so wildly on the past? Consider what happens when Robert Mapplethorpe encounters Mannerism, contemporary painters create their own "Idols of Perversity," and—long before both—Goethe built a great drawing collection on his mistakes.

Goldblatt

Can a white see apartheid as his history? David Goldblatt photographs South Africa in black and white, and he finds how little has changed.

Goldin

With Nan Goldin, Bill Henson, Nathalie Djurberg, and Judith Eisler, art gets painfully explicit about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. So why do their human actors vanish so easily into forests, fairy tales, claymation, the blur of a picture tube, or death?

Did Nan Goldin and other artists of the 1980s sell out, get forced out, or aspire to move out all along? "East Village USA" evokes a scene of experiment and entrepreneurship, like a trial run for art today.

When I think of sex, violence, and sheer play, am I talking about childhood or art? "Visions of Childhood" at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center lets Nan Goldin, Grace Goldsmith, Nayland Blake, Lewis Carroll, Laurie Simmons, and others ask just that.

Is anything left of Modernism's daring except nudity and nostalgia? In the cold winter of 2001, I take a quick gallery tour, with most space to Nan Goldin, Leonardo Drew, Robert Longo, and Lisa Yuskavage, who also has a rather early retrospective.

Goldsmith

Goldstein

For a time Jack Goldstein, Troy Brauntuch, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, and Cindy Sherman shared a Soho gallery. Did they ignite "The Pictures Generation"?

Goldsworthy

Goltzius

Did Mannerism's virtuosity offer a pale shadow the past, or did it foreshadow the future? For a postmodern art history, Hendrick Goltzius and Willem van Tetrode suggest a Post-Renaissance.

Goodman

Are Auguste Rodin's twisting bodies and multiple casts more like variations on a theme or Xerox copies? Arthur C. Danto, Nelson A. Goodman, and Rosalind E. Krauss—as critics and philosophers—each tackle the originality of the avant-garde.

Gorchov

Symmetry is back, but are artists opening or shutting doors? Ron Gorchov, Mark Grotjahn, Ellsworth Kelly, Fred Sandback, and Catherine Yass start knocking.

D. Gordon

Does the slow pace of video or a bare installation afford an escape from this world or an invitation to engagement? "Out of Time," drawn from MOMA's permanent collection, and Douglas Gordon both want to know.

How did participatory art and "relational esthetics" become installations by celebrity artists? Rirkrit Tiravanija, Douglas Gordon, and "theanyspacewhatever" take over the Guggenheim.

M. Gordon

Why not start your own museum? The Emily Fisher Landau Center, designed by Max Gordon, replays in real time the birth of the modern museum from private collections.

Do "December" and the solstice stand for a promise or for dark nights? Marianne Vitale poses much the same question to Minimalism and Melissa Gordon to Piet Mondrian.

Gorky

Arshile Gorky saw drawing as the essence of painting. Did that make his paintings traditional or his drawings a foretaste of the future?

Arshile Gorky felt the loss of a father, a homeland, a mother, two wives, and even a body of work. Can a biographer know how much that left him to create anew?

How did Picasso get to America without leaving Europe? "Picasso and American Art" traces his influence on Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, and others.

Gormley

Sometimes art aspires to a science experiment. With Antony Gormley, David Fried, Jeppe Hein, Eileen Quinlan, and Mark Sheinkman, is it all done with smoke and mirrors?

Is public sculpture still standing or standing still? Antony Gormley and "Statuesque" aim for grand but vulnerable statuary, and then George Herms comes to salvage the mess.

Has modern sculpture settled into scrap, monumentalism, or both? Antony Gormley, Nancy Rubins, and the fate of a New York landmark by Philip Pavia navigate between Modernism, Minimalism, and the junkyard.

Gossart

What if history ran backward—from Mannerism to the High Renaissance and then to Jan van Eyck? For Jan Gossart (or Mabuse), that history shaped Mannerism after all.

Gottlieb

Long after Picasso's fears and the alchemy of Adolph Gottlieb, can one still take "the primitive" or the shock of the avant-garde seriously? A new Web magazine locates Modernism's "Primitive Discord."

Goya

In 1820, at age seventy-three, Francisco de Goya survived yet another near-fatal illness, only to face exile. What lies behind the vigor, experiment, and mystery of Goya's last works?

When Napoleon turned his cannons on Spain, he also stirred up art, with a new taste for the Spanish Baroque. What happens when art history rolls out the canon, from Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Goya all the way to Edouard Manet and John Singer Sargent?

The notion of originality has taken quite a beating from critics—not to mention from TV. Can the Met find the real Francisco de Goya and Rembrandt?

D. Graham

If Dan Graham has performed naked, what makes his work so cool and detached? Graham moves from rock concerts to glass houses, while Ernesto Neto asks kids with a stocking fetish to move right in.

P. Graham

If any city were to follow to Ezra's Pound's directions to "make it new," it ought to be New York. Paul Graham, Lothar Osterburg, and Seher Shah still invent their city of dreams.

El Greco

Why do El Greco, a boy, a monkey, a madman, and a candle flame stare back at one another? A retrospective shows plenty of influences and evolution, but the same puzzlement over human and divine light.

The more visionary El Greco became, the more he clung to the same vision—and yet the more distant it seems. How can a painter span enough art movements, countries, and religious wars to change anyone but him?

Where did the Renaissance begin in earnest? The Limbourg brothers illuminate the International Style, "Pages of Gold" follows progress across Europe, and "Icon Painting in Venetian Crete" takes El Greco from his origins to Italy.

Can art from Toledo means more than El Greco? From Ohio, the Toledo Museum shows art history's grappling with humanity and nature in such figures as El Greco, Piero di Cosimo, and Jacopo Bassano, while Spain and St. John the Divine set aside "Time to Hope."

Green

Are museum blockbusters to blame for high museum prices? Tyler Green thinks so, but Gustave Caillebotte makes one wonder about the appeal of big shows and about art on the cheap.

Amid the swirl of big bucks at the 2008 Armory Show, Pulse, Volta, and other art fairs, does it even make sense to probe for conflict of interest? Tyler Green complains, but one writer, dealer, curator, and organizer—Christian Viveros-Fauné—argues that a creative mind can have it all.

Greenaway

Did Leonardo and Paolo Veronese anticipate Beethoven, the discovery of Pluto, and Jean Baudrillard? With Peter Greenaway, the society of the spectacle has a hungering for the real.

Greenfield

How did women end up on both sides of the camera? In photography and video, Amy Greenfield, Barbara Crane, and Barbara Ess fragment the body and the medium.

Greenberg

How many critics does it take to screw up Abstract Expressionism? In "Action/Abstraction," Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg face off, but Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning get along just fine.

Greuze

Do an artist's first and second thoughts, that corner of life apart from a forgotten narrative, always look modern? In the case of Jean-Baptiste Greuze, drawings may instead pull a modern viewer into the theater of the Enlightenment.

Groeneboer

Is there a thread connecting Jonah Groeneboer, Amy Cutler, Cui Fei, and Chiharu Shiota? Their weave catches added dimensions, female communities, private writing, and the viewer.

Gropius

When Josef Albers and László Moholy-Nagy came to America, did they bring fine art, sound design, or more consumer products? "From the Bauhaus to the New World" has one asking, while "Bauhaus: Workshops for Modernity" shows how Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Marcel Breuer shaped modern art.

Grotjahn

Symmetry is back, but are artists opening or shutting doors? Mark Grotjahn, Ron Gorchov, Ellsworth Kelly, Fred Sandback, and Catherine Yass start knocking.

Is there more to abstraction than Generation Blank? Mark Grotjahn, Stephan Westfall, and summer group shows try the formulas, and they break down.

Guercino

How can five paintings from the Norton Simon Museum include three dogs, three mothers, and at least twice as many angels? Jacopo Bassano, Peter Paul Rubens, Guercino, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo chart the parallel development of painting in oil and a new secularism.

Gursky

Can art leap tall buildings in a single bound? Unlike typical summer sculpture, Andreas Gursky, Peter Wegner, and "Tall Buildings" take the great outdoors inside.

Guston

Philip Guston influenced artists from Abstract Expressionism to Postmodernism. Did his art instead adhere to a more somber past?

Guyton/Walker

Is all the world a stage? On the path from "Creating the Modern Stage" to installation art, Guyton/Walker and Jacqueline Humphries find abstraction.

Gwathmey

When did modern architecture give way to colors and curves? Charles Gwathmey, Eero Saarinen, and Josiah McElheny each give the International Style a different terminus.

Gysin

Rivane Neuenschwander treats everything as an occasion for brightness and the fulfillment of wishes, and Brion Gysin has his Dreammachine. Can I still be wishing for more?

Haacke

Can political art be numbingly obvious and obscure at the same time? Hans Haacke, Emory Douglas, Claire Fontaine, and Artur Zmijewski give it their best shot.

After a three-year interval, the 2000 Whitney Biennial has a paradoxical name, plus huge publicity over Nazi references by Hans Haacke, a German-born artist. What about the paradox of American art in a global community?

Haas

The Whitney calls a show of abstract art "Remote Viewing: Invented Worlds in Painting and Drawing." With Julie Mehretu and, in the galleries, Pat Steir and Ernst Haas, need one even think of abstract art as painting and drawing?

Haber

Call these my creative (or silly or deadly serious) side:

What is left for a blind critic? My retinal surgery teaches me about art, convention, and vision.

Were you the one asking for a good, brief dictionary of art terms and techniques? As the man said, you can look it up—but that does not necessarily mean you can believe it.

Yes, I know I am only a critic, but I do not know where else to put this. Can I invade a museum and a docent's authority with my own performance art?

Know how to talk like a critic? Let me allow some of my very favorite writers to speak for themselves—well, with a bit of help.

Can I recover architecture and family history on the Grand Concourse? I find my own instead in a panorama left over from the 1964 World's Fair.

Whose expectations are these anyway? Hollywood and Dickens meet in the middle, in my (classic) update of Great Expectations set in New York City.

Want a good reason to become an art critic? If you could only get on the MOMA press list, you wouldn't face this preposterous museum entrance fee.

If you went in search of a writer, would you find me? I went to a store myself, and I found some disturbing gaps in the chain.

What role does political art play today? I contribute to an interview on art and politics.

Oh, dear, I am blogging yet again, but no longer for ArtBistro. What can it—or I—bring to the conversation?

Can multiculturalism and diversity or experiment and cries for "standards" actually conflict, and can science illuminate the dilemma for art?

And yes, more creative writing, for art and science carry an air of authority and yet still, all too often, fall powerless. Did the environment really make a difference to the 2000 presidential election—and vice versa?

Okay, a more humorous turn on New York and the election. In fact, while I am trying to wipe that smile off my face, what difference did the elder Bush's home state—or the younger one's challenge from terror—make to my love life? Are you taking sufficient care for the latest gossip and your personal health? Have you survived Vegas or Downtown Disney?

Hadid

Zaha Hadid gives a brusque welcome to Postmodern architecture, and Sarah Sze and Caroline McCarthy look everywhere at once. Which represents the future of New York City?

Hall

What were you doing at age twelve? If you were Michelangelo, says the Met, you were painting devils in the sky, while James Hall thinks you had a problem with your body.

Halley

When photography meets abstraction, does the camera have designs on the viewer? Peter Halley haunts mixed media from Rory Donaldson, Lansing-Dreiden, and Raha Raissnia.

Did Peter Halley and other artists of the 1980s sell out, get forced out, or aspire to move out all along? "East Village USA" evokes a scene of experiment and entrepreneurship, like a trial run for art today.

Peter Halley looks on expressionism as an ideological error. Can he seriously correct it?

Halpern

What happens when abstraction meets the ready-made gesture? Tamar Halpern, Skyler Brickley, and Amy Sillman take painting "Besides, With, Against, and Yet."

Hals

Frans Hals left more than two hundred surviving commissions but died in poverty. Did his portraits grow darker or lusher in black and white?

Hamburger

Can an artist still break through boundaries, with or without a radio signal? Rirkrit Tiravanija, Katrín Sigurdardóttir, and Susan Hamburger give it a try.

Hamilton

Do images of Asia always amount to "orientalism"? From James McNeill Whistler to Ann Hamilton and Paul Kos, "The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia" looks to the East and finds only religion.

Hammond

Hammons

Can blackness—or art—become invisible? Perhaps it already has, and David Hammons wants to know why.

Hanley

Has art become more fragile or only a critic's authority? Kevin Hanley, Janine Antoni, Amy Bennett, Matthew Geller, Peter Sarkisian, David Shapiro, and E. E. Smith put them both to the test.

Hardy

Is it painting or photography, staged or observed? Anne Hardy, Gregory Crewdson, Ron Diorio, Sherry Karver, and E. E. Smith all have one guessing.

K. L. Harris

Does a tribute say more about the original or the present? With "The Bearden Project" and a mural, Kira Lynn Harris and others remember Romare Bearden.

L. A. Harris

Did the March on Washington demand a response from African American artists? When Romare Bearden helped found "Spiral," he could only dream how Radcliffe Bailey, "Evidence of Accumulation," and Lyle Ashton Harris would spiral outward.

Harrison

Can a feminist still laugh at fashion and celebrity? Rachel Harrison, Carla Gannis, Tracey Moffatt, and Shannon Plumb dress for success.

Harron

Did Andy Warhol decline from artist into celebrity, or was he asking for it all along? A film by Mary Harron makes an eerie backdrop for yet more of his late work.

Hassam

When Childe Hassam captured the flag along Fifth Avenue, American Impressionism had already passed its prime. Had he given it fresh life or helped create a new urban realism?

Haub

At the end of 1996, did "in" New Yorkers still never travel north of 14th Street? I check out the new Chelsea galleries and dear old 57th Street, with the most space to Leonardo Drew, Garry Hill, Ellsworth Kelly, Jodi Manasevit, Sue Williams, and Christian Haub—a painter who looks beyond and through paint.

Hawkinson

What distinguishes digital art from boys playing with their boy toys? New media looks for definitions in old-fashioned contraptions by Tim Hawkinson, Cory Arcangel, and Charlotte Becket.

Can Soho recover memories of modernity? Tim Hawkinson, Stephen Westfall, Wendell McRae, and Donald Baechler take on the construction job—with everything from abstract painting and photography to machine parts.

Haynes

If abstraction is the cutting edge, just who is doing the cutting? Nancy Haynes finds its dark edges, "Cutters" slices them into the work, and Mary Heilmann surfs through them.

Heidegger

Should the high crimes and misdemeanors of creative individuals color judgment of their work? Martin Heidegger makes a test case of creativity and morality.

Who is that couple in Jan van Eyck's most famous painting, face front and hands joined, as if for a solemn ceremony? Three books seek the truth in painting and a new art history, just as Martin Heidegger once had faced an enigmatic pair of shoes by van Gogh.

Heilmann

If abstraction is the cutting edge, just who is doing the cutting? Nancy Haynes finds its dark edges, "Cutters" slices them into the work, and Mary Heilmann surfs through them.

Hein

Sometimes art aspires to a science experiment. With Jeppe Hein, David Fried, Antony Gormley, Eileen Quinlan, and Mark Sheinkman, is it all done with smoke and mirrors?

Heizer

Can the great postwar movements encompass a full century of American art and an Edward Hopper retrospective? With "Full House," just past sculpture by Michael Heizer, the Whitney's permanent collection gives it a try.

Is it just a few years ago that Soho felt like a carnival? I offer a light, off-the-cuff summer 1994 tour, with the most space to Nayland Blake, Jenny Holzer, Laurie Simmons, and Michael Heizer—who carries the mass and scale of the earth into the gallery.

Hendricks

Barkley L. Hendricks mixes academic portraiture, clashing colors, quotes from art history, and African-American identity. Can he and Shinique Smith have it all?

Henson

With Bill Henson, Nathalie Djurberg, Judith Eisler, and Nan Goldin, art gets painfully explicit about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. So why do their human actors vanish so easily into forests, fairy tales, claymation, the blur of a picture tube, or death?

Herms

Is public sculpture still standing or standing still? Antony Gormley and "Statuesque" aim for grand but vulnerable statuary, and then George Herms comes to salvage the mess.

Herring

A scared public and the mainstream media far overstate the problem of critical "artspeak." When dealers tout Oliver Herring for his combination of comic-strip heros and high-brow esthetics, could I instead call it martspeak?

Herrera

Arturo Herrera paints convincingly with collage, Mariah Robertson with photograms, and Angel Otero with spattered fabric. Can abstraction relive its "Geometric Days"?

Hershman

Is there life beyond Chelsea—and even a gallery or two? While some hot dealers escape the Chelsea art mall for a trendier downtown, Lynn Hershman suggests that art, fashion, and high finance go all too well together on video.

Herzog & de Meuron

While the Brooklyn Museum redirects curators, MOMA lets Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron put perception on a leash. Would David Carrier call this museum democracy?

Hesse

For Eva Hesse, time and chance cut short not just a life, but also a retrospective. Does that leave the trace of a Minimalist, a woman artist, a Holocaust survivor, or something else again?

Hewitt

Have Leslie Hewitt, Ai Weiwei, Jim Hodges, and James Nares reshaped architecture, reinforced it, or challenged it? Their installations move between floor covering, the artist's studio, and a wrecking ball.

Hickey

Can art, as Dave Hickey demands, still "civilize us"? The enormous futon that Klaus Biesenbach and Wendall Walker call Volume, SHoP's manic sculpture garden by the name of Dunescape, and "Around 1984" with its look at the 1980s do their best, but Barbara Kruger wittily refuses to try.

Highstein

Oh, no, another minimalist? Jene Highstein and his gallery's block-long space make an interesting combination.

G. Hill

Is video art just right for the information age? Gary Hill returns to a reality where people still stumble in the dark.

At the end of 1996, did "in" New Yorkers still never travel north of 14th Street? I check out the new Chelsea galleries and dear old 57th Street, with the most space to Leonardo Drew, Christian Haub, Ellsworth Kelly, Jodi Manasevit, Sue Williams, and Garry Hill—whose fragile figures are changing my mind about him.

How long will Chelsea offer a mix of warehouses, idealism, chic, and big money? In late 1999 it at least has room for Postmodernism, laughter, and laser-cut tears, including Andreas Slominski, Gary Hill, Eric Magnuson, Diane Samuels, and Céleste Boursier-Mougenot.

What are two substitutes for the eye and two ways to break a museum's silence? Consider a magnifying glass aimed at Raphael, amid a show of "The Draftsman's Art," and a videotaped scream in the darkness from Gary Hill.

Does the Chelsea gallery scene know where the bodies are bodied? Gary Hill, Wim Delvoye, Tracey Emin, Daniel Rozin, and Sam Taylor-Wood may not get real, but they do get physical.

R. Hill

Gillian Wearing shows the stages of a woman's life as wrought with guilt, Robin Hill places art in a hospital, and Laurie Simmons moves in with a love doll. How can manufactured bodies suffer anxiety and decay.

Hiller

When artists like Susan Hiller, Charles Willson Peale, and Ed Ruscha take "The Museum as Muse," have they made the ultimate critique—or given in to the museum institution? Just when postmodern critics thought they knew, the Modern takes itself as muse, too.

Hines

Could the 2007 Dumbo "Art Under the Bridge" festival, with work by Roger Hines, mark the end of an era? Compare its crowds to those for the Chelsea money machine.

Hirschhorn

You call this a monument? Ed Ruscha traces the course of empire and Thomas Hirschhorn a world in ruins, while "Monuments for the USA" seeks a nation worth remembering.

Hirst

Just how serious is Damien Hirst? In the worst case, ironically enough, serious indeed.

Which opens art most to the masses, Chelsea in September 2008 or Damien Hirst at auction? Either way, it entails a fascination with toilet jokes and Andres Serrano.

Is London racing past New York or mired in tradition? Damien Hirst, Ken Currie, Christian Jankowski, Marilene Oliver, and Bridget Riley suggest the deep roots of a crazed arts scene and urban landscape.

Hitchcock

Laura Mulvey took feminism to the movies, when she asked just who is stalking Hitchcock's women—the murderer, the hero, Alfred Hitchcock, or the man in the movie house. But is someone else altogether stuck on a woman's image?

Höch

If Hannah Höch began as one of Dada's most incisive artists, why is she so little known? Perhaps her feminist edge and cartoon cutouts have made her too contemporary.

Hockney

Does art take science—or vice versa? David Hockney cannot keep either one straight, while Philip Ball brings them together in a fascinating history of color.

Hodges

Have Jim Hodges, Ai Weiwei, Leslie Hewitt, and James Nares reshaped architecture, reinforced it, or challenged it? Their installations move between floor covering, the artist's studio, and a wrecking ball.

Hoke

Doreen McCarthy loves plastics, Lisa Hoke recycles, and "Notes on 'Notes on Camp' " recalls Susan Sontag. For all the theater, can the art object still slip out from within quotes?

Höller

Holt

When Manhattan Island gets an island of its own, should one call it a site, a nonsite, or gentrification? With the assistance of Nancy Holt, Floating Island makes a provocative addition to a suitably systematic and entropic Robert Smithson retrospective—and a striking contrast to New York earth art by Walter de Maria.

Holzer

Jenny Holzer colors with industrial LEDs and paints with a censor's black and white. Does art or politics make it more overwhelming?

Is art text—and, if not, why do people keep wanting to censor it? Jenny Holzer integrates both text and its censorship into paintings, while a flag-burning amendment could reduce treats Jasper Johns to a sign.

Is it just a few years ago that Soho felt like a carnival? I offer a light, off-the-cuff summer 1994 tour, with the most space to Nayland Blake, Michael Heizer, Laurie Simmons, and Jenny Holzer—whose medium carries quite a few messages.

Homer

From George Caleb Bingham past Winslow Homer, painters have been telling "American Stories." But are they stories of individualism or community, of race or merit?

Hope

Does art parallel science or something older? "Natural Histories" stresses the handmade, while Shane Hope teaches molecules to paint.

Hopkins

Art seems to collapse right out from under James Hopkins, Mike Kelley, Jon Kessler, Diana Kingsley, Reynold Reynolds and Patrick Jolley, Daniel Rozin, and Catherine Sullivan. Are they just hyperactive or shaking things up?

Hopper

What distinguishes American Surrealism, and does it come down to Edward Hopper? The Whitney calls it "Real/Surreal," but Llyn Foulkes updates it for Pop Art and LA.

Rebecca Horn

When does a woman staring back constitute a self-portrait, and when does her sexuality become instead vulnerability or even stardom? Rebecca Horn flies close to death in early videos, Marina Abramovic alleges "erotic rituals," and Roni Horn turns her camera on another woman.

Roni Horn

Hoving

The Met upgrades a portrait to Diego Velázquez, the Frick cleans house, and Thomas Hoving dies. Have museums lost their magic?

Hovnanian

Are women photographers better off posing or hiding? The subjects of Rachel Hovnanian, Uta Barth, and Irene Caesar include themselves, dolls, empty space, and even me.

Howard

When artists bring death to the style pages, have they created a fourth-wave feminism? A slippery slope to suicide haunts video by Sue de Beer, paintings by Rachel Howard, and a sell-out by Sam Taylor-Wood.

Hu Bing

Should Michael Fried have meant "Art as Objecthood" as a compliment to Minimalism? Hu Bing, Bill Jenkins, Ted Victoria, and Bill Walton look to ordinary objects for drama and realism.

Huggins

Maryalice Huggins in Aesop's Mirror struggles to authenticate the object she loves, while the Met boasts of a newly discovered Michelangelo. What explains the politics of attribution?

Hujar

Is there more to David Wojnarowicz and Paul Thek than abjection? Peter Hujar captures their moments away from the furor.

Hume

Can digital art make a revolution while appropriating the same old world? Compare "BitStreams" and "Data Dynamics" to the obsessions, intimacy, and invasions of privacy in such gallery artists as Gary Hume and Peter Sarkisian.

Humphries

Is all the world a stage? On the path from "Creating the Modern Stage" to installation art, Guyton/Walker and Jacqueline Humphries find abstraction.

Hundley

What's Hecuba to him and she to Goldman Sachs? With Julie Mehretu and Elliott Hundley world finance meets Greek tragedy on a mural scale.

Huyghe

Must art comment only on itself, and must installations grow ever larger? Pierre Huyghe, "The Studio Visit," "Site 92," and Michael S. Riedel take the artist's working space as their muse.

Hyde

What could be more academic these days than abstract art, except maybe turning against it? Cecily Brown has to make one ask, but along with James Hyde and Rebecca Purdum, she may offer too many answers.

Still more names!

jhaber@haberarts.com