Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Fort Worth, Texas
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In the early 1970s, when Susan Rothenberg was a young painter living in New York, minimalism was the rage and “figuration was all but extinct,” said Kimberly Straub in Vogue.com. So how did Rothenberg make a name for herself? She “decided to make huge paintings of horses.” Rothenberg didn’t particularly like horses or have much knowledge of them. “She based her decision solely on finding a recognizable image she could deconstruct” in expressionistic paintings that pulse with kinetic energy. This “tight-knit selection of 25 canvases” from throughout her career shows how the artist forged her unique aesthetic.
Horses turned out to be the perfect subject with which to make an artistic statement, said Gaile Robinson in The Dallas Morning News. “Even in a simple line form, they speak of mass and motion,” and they have deep roots in art history. Yet Rothenberg left the motif behind when she moved to “the wilds of New Mexico” in 1990. Her new surroundings revealed a darker side of the animal world. “Fearful encounters such as The Chase and Dogs Killing Rabbit became her subject matter, and her canvases began to swirl with frenzied action.” More recently, she abandoned realistic images entirely, producing paintings that “show disembodied arms and hands dancing about the canvas.” None of Rothenberg’s paintings is perfect. “Her draftsmanship leaves something to be desired,” but she compensates with exuberant brush strokes that boil each scene down to its essentials. Three decades after Rothenberg first went her lonely way, figuration is back “in vogue,” and her own early art is a big reason why.
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Music reviews: Chance the Rapper, Cass McCombs, and Molly TuttleFeature "Star Line," "Interior Live Oak," and "So Long Little Miss Sunshine"
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Film reviews: Eden and Honey Don't!Feature Seekers of a new utopia spiral into savagery and a queer private eye prowls a high-desert town
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Critics' choice: Three chefs fulfilling their ambitionsFeature Kwame Onwuachi's grand second act, Travis Lett makes a comeback, and Jeff Watson's new Korean restaurant
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If/Thenfeature Tony-winning Idina Menzel “looks and sounds sensational” in a role tailored to her talents.
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Rocky
feature It’s a wonder that this Rocky ever reaches the top of the steps.
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Love and Information
feature Leave it to Caryl Churchill to create a play that “so ingeniously mirrors our age of the splintered attention span.”
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The Bridges of Madison County
feature Jason Robert Brown’s “richly melodic” score is “one of Broadway’s best in the last decade.”
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Outside Mullingar
feature John Patrick Shanley’s “charmer of a play” isn’t for cynics.
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The Night Alive
feature Conor McPherson “has a singular gift for making the ordinary glow with an extra dimension.”
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No Man’s Land
feature The futility of all conversation has been, paradoxically, the subject of “some of the best dialogue ever written.”
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The Commons of Pensacola
feature Stage and screen actress Amanda Peet's playwriting debut is a “witty and affecting” domestic drama.