By Paul Laster and Renée Riccardo

Iris van Dongen’s ‘Suspicious’ - a survey show of the artist’s large-scale drawings from 2003 to 2009, recently on view at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam - was a striking exhibition by a rising star on the international art scene. Born in Tilburg in 1975 and living and working in Berlin, Van Dongen mixes pastel and charcoal in her works on paper that portray gorgeous, gothic mistresses and femme fatales.

We only recently discovered her work when Paul photographed New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz alongside one of her pastels at the Armory Show. The figure in the drawing totally dwarfed him, and Van Dongen’s work forever stuck in our minds. We later discovered that she had shown in New York at Salon 94, a gallery run by our friend Jeannie Greenburg Rohatyn, but we had somehow missed that 2005 solo exhibition. (more…)

By Paul Laster and Renée Riccardo:

The Armory Show added a modern section, but Tefaf Maastricht has it all!

When the Armory Show added a modern wing to the 11th edition of the esteemed New York art fair in early-March, viewers flocked to see paintings and sculptures by Picasso, Giacometti, Rothko and other modern masters and vintage photographs by the likes of Steichen, Rodchenko and Arbus. The fair had previously been a venue for contemporary art, but now it was opening its doors to resale work by the big guns of the 20th century. Giving up its exclusivity was a bold move, but the Armory Show should have gone further by letting in great art of all ages. If it had done that, it could have competed with TEFAF Maastricht, which the International Herald Tribune recently praised as “the most outstanding fair in the world.” (more…)