Martha Schwendener

Brooklyn, New York

Art Critic at Freelance

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Articles

What to See in N.Y.C. Galleries in January

Jan 2, 2025 | nytimes.com | Martha Schwendener

Sylvia Plimack Mangold's photorealistic paintings of rulers, measuring tapes, gridded paper and floor tiles in " " at Craig Starr are about as banal and literal as it gets. And yet, there is a subtle humor in the seriousness and virtuosic precision of how she approached these seemingly absurd tasks.
At Salon Art + Design, Nature and Beauty Come Center Stage

Nov 7, 2024 | nytimes.com | Martha Schwendener

This year's edition of the Salon Art + Design fair at the Park Avenue Armory is back with 54 galleries, five special exhibitions and new leadership. The fair, which brings together objects and installations that blur the lines between art and utility has a distinct mission this year: to address the obstacles that have kept many people out of creative fields.
What to See in N.Y.C. Galleries in November

Nov 7, 2024 | nytimes.com | Martha Schwendener |Will Heinrich

This week in Newly Reviewed, Will Heinrich covers Reginald Madison's mix of abstraction and figuration, Daniel Terna's tension-filled scenes and Erin O'Keefe's illusory photographs. Image Reginald Madison "Hot House 2," 2006. Credit...
Lee Bul, South Korea's Provocateur, Ruffles the Met's Staid Niches

Oct 3, 2024 | nytimes.com | Martha Schwendener

"I have many mothers," the South Korean artist Lee Bul said as she stood in the Louise Bourgeois painting exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in 2022. The curator Lesley Ma, who was there with her, related this anecdote to a packed auditorium on a recent evening when Lee's four sculptures, titled "Long Tail Halo," opened to the public. They are the fifth edition of a commission for a contemporary artist to fill the niches on the Met's facade.
At 30, The Armory Show Asks, Can Art Fairs Still be Relevant?

Sep 5, 2024 | nytimes.com | Martha Schwendener

The Armory Show was founded 30 years ago by a handful of art dealers who treated the art fair format as a playful, ironic, even experimental affair. Held at the Gramercy Hotel in Manhattan, artworks were displayed on the beds, and viewers wandered from room to room taking in the cheeky display. We're a long, long way from that setup.
What to See in N.Y.C. Galleries in June

Jun 21, 2024 | nytimes.com | Martha Schwendener |Jillian Steinhauer |Will Heinrich

This week in Newly Reviewed, Jillian Steinhauer covers Farkhondeh Shahroudi 's nuanced history, a Latin American textile show and an exhibition featuring 46 contemporary artists who work in a wide range of mediums and materials. Through July 3. Goethe-Institut New York, 30 Irving Place, Manhattan; 212-439-8700, goethe.de/ins/us/en/. Image The artist Farkhondeh Shahroudi was born in Tehran 17 years before the 1979 Iranian Revolution that brought an oppressive Islamist government to power.
Vilém Flusser: On Fiction, Truth, and Envisioning

May 23, 2024 | brooklynrail.org | Martha Schwendener

Critics Page In 1966, the Czech-born philosopher Vilém Flusser (1920–91) wrote an essay titled “Da ficção” (“On Fiction”), which was published in Jornal O Diário de Ribeirão Preto. The essay is a meditation on reality versus fiction in the post-World War II era and bears revisiting. Flusser’s own reality had been upended. Born in Prague to a Jewish intellectual family, he was forced to migrate to Brazil after the 1939 Nazi invasion.
What to See in N.Y.C. Galleries in May

May 2, 2024 | nytimes.com | John Vincler |Martha Schwendener |Will Heinrich

This week in Newly Reviewed, Martha Schwendener covers Tamiko Nishimura's arresting black-and-white photographs, Tanya Merrill's playful portraits and Enrique Martínez Celaya's link to a Spanish master. Image The best photography show in town is also the American debut for the Japanese photographer Tamiko Nishimura, who is in her mid-70s.
What to See in N.Y.C. Galleries in March

Mar 19, 2024 | nytimes.com | Max Lakin |Martha Schwendener |Jillian Steinhauer

This week in Newly Reviewed, Martha Schwendener covers Shana Moulton's "Whispering Pines" series, Candace Hill-Montgomery's weavings and Emilija Skarnulyte's aerial video of Amazon river dolphins. Through April 21. Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street; (212) 708-9400, moma.org. Image Cynthia is back, with all her psychic and physical baggage and a welter of new products purchased to ease her pain.
When Zines Walked the Earth

Feb 21, 2024 | nytimes.com | Martha Schwendener

An extraordinary exhibition of dissident and countercultural takes at the Brooklyn Museum shows the power of the copy machine. Before the internet, before the spicy comments sections on Instagram and Twitter or the outré subcultures on TikTok, like-minded strangers connected through zines. What is a zine?