Travis Diehl

United States

Writer and Art Critic at Freelance

freelance critic || || https://t.co/jFOyo0Yn7c

Articles

For This Artist, Doomscrolling Isn't a Bad Thing

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Travis Diehl

Sprüth Magers, Rafman's gallery in the United States and Europe, said at the time that it would investigate the allegations. The gallery has stuck with him. "Proof of Concept" is Rafman's first major exhibition in North America since 2017. "It was essential for us to take this allegation seriously and consider it thoroughly from all sides," Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers, the gallery's owners, wrote in a recent statement to The Times.
For This Artist, Doomscrolling Isn’t a Bad Thing

1 month ago | flipboard.com | Travis Diehl

2 hours agoLauren Luxemburg, In Power12 Images In 2019, the photographer Lauren Luxemburg was on a boring date in east London, when the guy disappeared to the bathroom and she got chatting to someone else at the bar. That random stranger turned out to be the cinematographer Joshua Fry and, after showing him …
What to See in N.Y.C. Galleries in April

2 months ago | nytimes.com | Travis Diehl

As information emerges, so does distance. If you were to imagine a narrative, it could be as simple as: The metal bloom catches the artist's eye, then the artist notices that the whole fence is made of these springy curlicues - a revelation that's joyful, since the more the merrier, but also cut with loss, since that first flower is not so special after all. Papp works almost exclusively in clay slabs like these, always laid flat.
The New York Galleries Shaping the Scene

2 months ago | frieze.com | Travis Diehl |Will Fenstermaker |Marko Gluhaich |Jane Harris |Terence Trouillot

Frieze PublishingYes, email me reviews, offers, and opinions by artists, writers, and editors from Frieze Frieze EventsYes, email me Frieze Events Inc and Frieze Events Ltd’s global programme information including special offers and benefits It’s no secret that New York’s art ecosystem is under strain. As institutions slash budgets and corporate sponsorships evaporate, the ripple effects have hit small and mid-sized galleries hardest – many shuttering just as they hit their stride.
A Painter Whose Work Is Never Finished

Mar 8, 2025 | ourcommunitynow.com | Travis Diehl

Share The day before Janiva Ellis’s exhibition opened in Cambridge, Mass., on Jan. 31, most of her paintings weren’t done. Most of them still aren’t. In fact, that’s intentional: The 14 pieces gathered for “Fear Corroded Ape,” on view at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts through April 6, had been knocking around her studio in New York, unfinished for years, at least one since 2019.She had continued to push and pull the pigments, scraping away with solvent and rags.
A Painter Whose Work Is Never Finished

Mar 8, 2025 | nytimes.com | Travis Diehl

The day before Janiva Ellis's exhibition opened in Cambridge, Mass., on Jan. 31, most of her paintings weren't done. Most of them still aren't. In fact, that's intentional: The 14 pieces gathered for "Fear Corroded Ape," on view at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts through April 6, had been knocking around her studio in New York, unfinished for years, at least one since 2019. She had continued to push and pull the pigments, scraping away with solvent and rags.
We Need New Words for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Mar 7, 2025 | artreview.com | Travis Diehl

The problem is the impulse to defend ‘DEI’ as a metaphor without making the case for its essential valueWith the return of Donald Trump to the White House, the US right’s antipathy toward diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) follows a long line of linguistic takeovers. The left can’t seem to prevent the MAGA movement from coopting its terms. ‘Woke’ is now a joke, ‘deplorables’ a badge of honour, and ‘critical race theory’ is reverse-racist. When the left tries the same tactic, it often falls flat.
Limp Derrick

Mar 3, 2025 | nyra.nyc | Travis Diehl

This winter, visitors to Madison Square Park’s greensward were treated to a hunk of postindustrial kink. Artist Nicole Eisenman’s Fixed Crane is fixed, mobility-wise, but broken—a superannuated antique model that, if it weren’t gracing this snow-dappled ellipse in Manhattan, would be rotting in a boneyard. The forty-foot dinosaur rests on its side, lewdly displaying its undercarriage and treads, with its engine, gears, and hook tastefully scattered around the lawn.
Artists Tried to Activate Voters With Billboard Art. Did It Work?

Jan 8, 2025 | nytimes.com | Travis Diehl

On Nov. 6, the day after the presidential election, the aCrtist Hank Willis Thomas was at his studio in Brooklyn. His production assistants were poring over tables strewed with blobby red white and blue silk-screen prints of the words "Fragile/ Democracy / Handle With Care" in capital letters. The design is one of Thomas's many riffs on familiar phrases, meant to spur voters toward civic engagement. One version of the print ran on the cover of The New York Times Sunday Opinion section on Nov. 3.
Bodies in Repose? Not These.

Dec 18, 2024 | nytimes.com | Travis Diehl

"Vital Signs: Artists and the Body" draws from MoMA's 20th-century collection to show that identity is broader than physical form. But in skipping social media the show can't go far enough. Any show about "the body" has the backhanded blessing of wide appeal. Everybody has one - so what?