One-Sentence Art Reviews 4/23: Amy Sillman, Marlene Dumas, Charline von Heyl, Stuart Cumberland, Ryan McNamara, Wes Lang

No time for full reviews, Mom -- it's my turn to feed the class turtle.

Amy Sillman, Transformer (…or, how many lightbulbs does it take to change a painting?) at Sikkema Jenkins
The small, crude drawings and manifesto-like 'zine make me think she's getting bored, but if I had to wade through a roomful of them to get to her masterful paintings, so be it -- although if she is getting bored I'd like to see her move on because I'm sure she'd open new territory as exciting if not moreso than what she's doing now.

Marlene Dumas, Against the Wall at David Zwirner
For me these were political cartoons absent the gag and with only a little more color (except for a portrait with marvelous hair and finger-dabbed forehead that I couldn't stop looking at and a vase of purple flowers that reminded me of "The Cure" for some reason) -- saved in some cases by superb technique, not so much in others through coming off as too facile.

Charline von Heyl at Friedrich Petzel
These paintings come off to me as a bit more refined than those in the last show, with harder edges and a couple almost goofy decisions (cleanly-painted black stripe with neon green dotted core acting like a scribble but too perfectly drawn to be one?) that for the most part work well, at times seemingly in spite of themselves.

Stuart Cumberland, Gone/There at Nicholas Robinson Gallery
Carroll Dunham and Roy Lichtenstein have a love child, but probably because of my exposure to those earlier artists I want to see imagery, however indistinct, coalesce in these large paintings composed mostly of black-ish calligraphic scrawl marks framing fields of large Benday-like dots.

Ryan McNamara, And Introducing Ryan McNamara at Elizabeth Dee
Ordinary family photos and (high school? college? recent? how could you tell?) 2D art projects of a white-bread middle-or-upper-class kid who regales gallery visitors with personal stories showcasing the personal blandness and unjustified self-infatuation of a bland, self-interested culture.

Wes Lang, Smile, It's a Grey Day at ZieherSmith
Tattoos are hot hot hot but these combine-like paintings based on tattoos (painted by a tattoo artist, apparently?) felt like struggles for clarity that never quite resolves, with particular confusion due to the overt "abstract Guston" references.

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