Hrag Vartanian

Critic, Curator, Editor-in-chief and co-founder, Hyperallergic

Critic, Curator, Editor-in-chief and co-founder, Hyperallergic

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Bridget Riley’s new work at Pace Wildenstein

November 9, 2007 by hv

Veteran Op artist Bridget Riley‘s new paintings are leafy flourishes that play with your eyes in their own two-dimensional way. Famous for her black and white retina-warping canvases from the sixties, these new works are dominated by blues and greens and easily breathe in the whole loft-like space of Pace Wildenstein‘s 57th Street gallery.Filled with her characteristic (though now more subdued) eye-straining acrobatics, the only flaw (if I can call it that) is that the works are almost too friendly, which make them more wallpaper-like than perhaps the artist intended.

The most interesting tidbit I overheard at the opening was that the effect-obsessed artist has her work reproduced in her catalogues with colors that don’t resemble the originals. Why? So that the images (original & reproduction) both have the same effect. The artist thinks that reducing a large painting into a postcard-sized plate changes the color and more importantly its impact.

I wonder if she’s right.

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Pace’s Chelsea space on 25th Street is also exhibiting a batch of her work but I couldn’t get down there fast enough before they closed the doors for a private event. From what I could see through the glass, it was pretty much more of the same.

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Filed Under: art, art criticism, New York

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