CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/3/2016

Nicole Eisenman: Al-ugh-ories

Order now – we only have a few more copies of Al-ugh-ories, the catalogue to Nicole Eisenman's acclaimed recent exhibition at the New Museum. "Since it first gained attention, Eisenman’s work has been described with terms like 'punk,' 'queer,' 'feminist,' and 'radical,'" Grace Dunham writes. "But it would be an oversimplification of her career to relegate her to the position of outsider because of her identity as a gay woman in an overwhelmingly straight, cis-male profession. Eisenman’s paintings fold the marginal and the dominant into one another. She paints freaks and outliers using a visual lexicon that recalls the classics. She has criticized the inner functions of the art market while also benefiting from its institutional support. The emotional landscape of her paintings is queer to those who wish to see it that way; viewers can also opt out of perversion and simply engage with the technique of a master. The way in which Eisenman moves back and forth between the middle and the margins is not an inconsistency: it is the premise of her approach."