Art Right Now - Contemporary Painting Returns, Part I
Paula Burleigh, teaching fellow, Whitney Museum of American Art

Suffering more deaths and revivals than any other medium, painting was declared regressive and moribund throughout the second half of the 20th century, only to make perennial returns from the grave. Arguably we are in the midst of one such return: after the wane of painting’s popularity in the 1990s, the 21st century has ushered in a renewal of the medium as well as traditional genres including history painting, portraiture and still life. These two lectures explore these and other themes discernible in contemporary painting, including sensuality and the body, abstraction, the politics of representation, and folk art aesthetics. We will look at examples of painting (and in the second part, works on paper as well) by both established and emerging artists working today, including Kerry James Marshall, Amy Sillman, Terry Winters, Nicole Eisenman, Tschabalala Self, Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Tala Madani, among others.