Book Description

"Opens a window on the mind and career of a painter. . . . A welcome and worthy addition to the literature of contemporary art."

-Miami Herald Now available in a well-priced paperback edition, this award-winning study explores the life and work of Susan Rothenberg, "a major talent" (Robert Hughes, Time) who is "one of the best artists of her generation" (Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times) and "our best painter's painter" (Peter Plagens, Newsweek). Illustrated with original documentary photographs and nearly 90 colorplates, including three gatefolds, the book puts Rothenberg's arresting images of horses, body fragments, dancers, and spinners in context-and examines how her personal emblems and experiences figure in her work.161 illustrations, 87 in full color, 3 gatefolds, 10 x 11"JOAN SIMON is a writer and independent curator specializing in contemporary art. The former managing editor of Art in America, she is the author of studies on Jenny Holzer and Bruce Nauman. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Dances with Images
SUSAN ROTHENBERG's animals are recognizable and simply drawn on flat but energetically worked surfaces to capture movement and spirit: they in particular link the impulsively figurative Abstract Expressionism of Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock with the geometrical Minimalism of Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt. In fact, she sees art as needing a maker to change a familiar object into something other than itself: her horse paintings call up the direct, subtle imagery and tonality of cave paintings on abstractly lush surfaces; "Mukuhara" shows a sprightly single bound in midair and midfield with a hinted vertical divide in the overall sienna surface, and "Flanders" barely details black figure and ground within white outlines. But when she starts talking about landscapes and portraits, it means that she is putting a stop to serializing her images: bikers; dancers "Holding the floor" by firmly grounding an arabesque and countering with a sweeping arm gesture, jugglers, spinners, and vaulters "Vaulting" in the one continuously steady step-by-step movement of Marcel Duchamp's "Nude descending a staircase"; hands and heads; horses; and U-turns. Her "Grandmother" portrait is the first time that she has two separate figures relating to each other in her art. Her daughter "Maggie's cartwheel" portrait is one of my favorites, partly because it makes me think of the artist's hoop performance in a beach piece by friend Joan Jones. Her "Mondrian" charcoal on paper portrait is the first time that she brings an art-historical figure into her work and that she paints after drawing instead of her usual turning a drawing into a painting. I particularly like the work that she does in blue: "The blue chair," which author Joan Simon describes as Matisse-wise in the sitter giving off comfort, composure and containment while looking toward the unknown; my two favorite landscapes, "Blue frontal," with upturned white horse legs framing a blue-black field with a blue horse, and "Foxes on a hill," with the asymmetrically symmetrical composition on a deep blue with black field; and "Blue woman," "Buddha with bamboo," and "Folded Buddha" in Giotto-style blue. The book's beautiful illustrations and clear text do justice to the artist and her work: it leaves no doubt about how she fits it with THE IMPACT OF MODERN PAINTS by Jo Crook and Tom Learner, MATISSE, by Lawrence Gowing, LEE KRASNER by Robert Hobbs, and PIET MONDRIAN by Hans Ludwig C. Jaffe.

Nice collection of paintings
Rothenberg exceeds her catagory of "neo-expressionism" without rebelling from the masters and painters that she has always admired. The full color photos of her paintings are beautiful. How can she not be trusted? There is so much evidence of her working and reworking her surfaces that it is easy for any painter to see her deliberation with the medium. ... Read more

Book Description

Susan Rothenberg first gained critical attention in the mid-seventies when she introduced the simple, outlined image of an animal onto the austere canvas of Minimalism. Since then, her exploration of the formal tenets of painting has been manifested through increasingly complex compositions, rendered in a recognizably gestural style. This combination has in part allowed for the consistent interpretation of the artist's work as being both emotionally intense and a serious contribution to the tradition of heroic painting.

Since moving to the Southwest from New York City a decade ago, Rothenberg has created a body of work that is at once a continuation and evolution of previous concerns, and an expression of dramatic changes. Susan Rothenberg: Paintings from the Nineties, published on the occasion of a major exhibit of the artist's works from the past decade, brings together twenty of her most significant recent paintings. As these works have never been shown before as a group, this book provides the first opportunity to consider a crucial period in the career of one of our most important contemporary artists. Along with Rothenberg's haunting, evocative images, reproduced in full color, the volume includes an important critical introduction by Cheryl Brutvan, Beal Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and a poetic response to the artist's paintings by Robert Creeley. ... Read more

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Artforum International, published by Artforum International Magazine, Inc. on March 1, 2005. The length of the article is 585 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Susan Rothenberg: Sperone Westwater.(NEW YORK)
Author: Suzanne Hudson
Publication: Artforum International (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2005
Publisher: Artforum International Magazine, Inc.
Volume: 43Issue: 7Page: 236(1)

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Proceso, published by CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V. on November 10, 1996. The length of the article is 1137 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: La figuracin sinttica de Susan Rothenberg. (exposicin de pintora neoyorkina en Mxico)(TT: The synthetic imaginings of Susan Rothenberg) (TA: exhibition of New York painter in Mexico)
Author: Rauqel Tibol
Publication: Proceso (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 10, 1996
Publisher: CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V.
Issue: n1045Page: p60(2)

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