3.18.2004
Tom Goldenberg at Salander-O’Reilly
[Posted 3:52 PM by Roger Kimball]
Every sensible person knows that there is lots to criticize about the contemporary art world. But that is not to say that there is not a lot of good art being made today: it’s just that it generally doesn’t get the ink that it deserves. I was extremely pleased, then, to see that the indispensable New York Sun has given due recognition to the painter Tom Goldenberg, a very impressive artist whom I have written about myself in my book Art’s Prospect. (It goers without saying that The New York Times has not noticed the exhibition: but then the chief art critic for the Times believes that Matthew Barney is “the greatest American artist of his generation”–a statement that should be grounds for instant dismissal, if not deportation.) Tom currently has a show at Salander-O’Reilly Galleriesin New York (through April 3).
The Sun piece is written by Robert Messenger–a good friend and former colleague at The New Criterion. Robert gets it just right:
The whole scene suddenly shifts, as if a movie camera were panning away.You reel a bit and lose your perspective as you are drawn upward. It’s a masterful effect, something only a first-rate painter who spends his days and nights in pursuit of painterly effect could achieve.
These pictures show Tom Goldenberg continuing to forge ahead, painting landscape in a way that acknowledges his art historical forebears but is absolutely contemporary.
Read Robert’s entire piece here (login rec.)–or pick up a copy of today’s Sun.