Two years ago, Joe Zucker had three exhibitions in three New York galleries. These not only put him firmly back on the perpetually shifting artworld map but also introduced many of the critical aspects of his oeuvre from the last 30-plus years to a new audience, including many younger painters who likely were not familiar with the depth of his work. That the first exhibition--a show of several of his still-very-fresh 'cotton-ball' paintings from the early 1970s--was held at Gavin Brown's Enterprise, where the likes of Peter Doig, Udomsak Kisanamis, Chris Ofili and Laura Owens have shown, made this reemergence all the more stimulating and fulfilling. This show was immediately followed by two concurrent exhibitions: the first (at Nolan/Eckman) a strongly selected 26 year survey of his drawings and watercolours, which also introduced a new series that took on the subject of art storage; and the second (at Paul Kasmin) a debut of new 'box' paintings that many longtime followers of his work (myself included) consider to be amongst the finest of his career.
December 1, 2006
