{"id":1625,"date":"2010-03-03T23:15:59","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T07:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2010\/03\/alexander_kroll_-_geometry_as\/"},"modified":"2010-03-03T23:15:59","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T07:15:59","slug":"alexander_kroll_-_geometry_as","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2010\/03\/alexander_kroll_-_geometry_as.html","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Kroll &#8211; a rare and engrossing pleasure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If geometry were capable of taking its own rules lightly, mathematics would be at home in the paintings of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alexanderkroll.com\/\">Alexander Kroll<\/a>.<br \/>\nThey look as if they long to be grids but cannot pass the sobriety test. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"alexanderkroll1.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/alexanderkroll1.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0pt auto 20px;\" height=\"426\" width=\"400\" \/>Kroll works small, usually in oil and enamel but occasionally with some element of collage. Ambitious paintings that span no more than two joined hands used to be unusual, back when <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pacewildenstein.com\/Exhibitions\/ViewExhibition.aspx?type=Exhbition&amp;guid=3cffb1cb-b58c-4cee-8ee7-1a5b9b21925b\">Thomas Nozkowski<\/a> was consistently underrated for producing them. He said a single 16 x 14 inch painting could fill a wall but didn&#8217;t insist on having a wall for each one, and that was also held against him. (No ego, no glory.)<\/p>\n<p>Since the mid-1990s, thanks in part to Nozkowski, big no longer has a corner on best. If we&#8217;re not quite at William Blake&#8217;s definition of enlightenment, to see eternity in a grain of sand, we generally accept that a painting of modest dimensions can possess an enormous sense of scale.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"alexanderkroll2drk.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/alexanderkroll2drk.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0pt auto 20px;\" height=\"500\" width=\"400\" \/>Some look at Kroll&#8217;s work and see nothing but sources: He owes everything to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gerhard-richter.com\/\">Gerhard Richter<\/a>, they say. He&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gregkucera.com\/winters.htm\">Terry Winters<\/a> without the seedpods. Doesn&#8217;t <a href=\"http:\/\/www.acmelosangeles.com\/artists\/tomory-dodge\/\">Tomory Dodge<\/a> do this better? <\/p>\n<p>A friend asked that question about Dodge at Kroll&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jamesharrisgallery.com\/Previous%20Exhibitions\/alexanderkroll022010.html\">James Harris Gallery<\/a> opening, not loudly, to be boorish, but in the spirit of evidence proffered toward a conclusion already reached: not that good. I could have said I thought Dodge leaned more toward Richter and Kroll toward Nozkowski but didn&#8217;t. What I wanted to say was an unacceptable question: What is it that you are seeing? Can you see these particular paintings? Can you forget pedigree for a moment and let the moments the paintings themselves create carry you toward their own conclusions?<\/p>\n<p>Broad yet broken diagonals crisscross the surface, creating a foreground that serves as a failed barrier, a collapsed grid. Behind it is the kind of push-pull the Abstract Expressionists used to advocate, an animated, energy exchange carried by color.There&#8217;s nothing earth-shaking in Kroll&#8217;s premises, but their elaborations are a rare and engrossing pleasure.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"alexanderkroll3lite.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/alexanderkroll3lite.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0pt auto 20px;\" height=\"464\" width=\"400\" \/>Through March 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If geometry were capable of taking its own rules lightly, mathematics would be at home in the paintings of Alexander Kroll. They look as if they long to be grids but cannot pass the sobriety test. Kroll works small, usually in oil and enamel but occasionally with some element of collage. Ambitious paintings that span [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}