ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ

A couple of wonderful shows in New York lift the spirits as I wander around Chelsea. Their unifying theme is a referencing to the artists who came before the contemporary, a reminder that all art is really part of a great continuum. I stand in the inner room of Cheim & Read, virtually sunning myself in the heat given off by the large paintings by Joan Mitchell that surround me. It is clear that Mitchell had been looking at Monet as well as Van Gogh, "Sunflowers", the show's title a clue. Mitchell absorbed her influences and then created canvases imbuing them with a contemporaneity that seems to resonate in the space. The marks in the works seem freely applied and spontaneous. Here is scribbling and scrumbles of mark making which still culminates in a carefully worked composition. These are skillful works beautifully installed and of museum quality. At the Gladstone Gallery Lari Pittman wows with a show of intricate paintings multi- layered and meticulously composed with passages still showing a gestural spontaneity. Pittman lives and works in Los Angeles but comes originally from South America. Pittman is overtly referencing here the meticulousness of still life paintings of Northern Europe mixed with the design elements, staining and dying of his adopted California. There are few who can paint fried eggs with the style and ?lan that Pittman can. He is just getting better and better. Across the street, at Zach Feuer, is "German Enlightenment" showcasing the work of Berlin artist Anton Henning. Henning's thickly impasto abstractions in milky pastels overtones are familiar, but there are more atypical works here exploring historical works as well. Images surreally recalling the one eyed monster of Rodin as well as works of Picasso and DeKooning. Albert York is a painter's painter. A review by Michael Brenson published in the New York Times in 1988 of this reclusive artist could have been published this week. "York may not be widely known by the general art public but painters know very well who he is. Fairfield Porter, another painter with a passion for Long Island light, wrote about him. Susan Rothenberg selected him for the ''Artists Choose Artists'' show at the CDS Gallery in 1984. He is as much of a perfectionist in his own way as Myron Stout, another reclusive painter obsessed with the relationship between figure and ground. To maintain his search for the absolute, York, like Stout, needed space and time that cannot be found in the city. He is proof that it is always possible for an artist to stay out of the limelight and make art that matters." In this small show York shows work not dissimilar to that described in the 1988 review. Here a work which references Gauguin, here one that points to Manet and several that evoke the naive wide eyed wonder of Rosseau. There is however an over arching individuality of the work. A soft light referencing the light in eastern Long Island where he still works, increasingly now in pencil seen here in fragile almost disappearing ghostly portraits. Our Chelsea tour, so far, has already referenced the work of Picasso, Manet, Gauguin, Rosseau, Monet and Van Gogh so it is not surprising to end with the most recent works of New York Superstar Richard Prince at the Gagosian Gallery. When I visited him in his upstate studio last summer he said his next show in New York would reference DeKooning whose work he had already explored in hi Guggenheim retrospective. DeKooning is here in Chelsea in the wildly painted biker girls but there is a new hero character the Rastafarian man proudly standing in a marijuana-collaged jungle. Prince has a new hero to explore and its edgy juxtaposition with biker girls is only a beginning. Joan Mitchell, "Sunflowers" continues at Cheim & Read until December 20, 2008 Lari Pittman continues at Gladstone Gallery until November 30, 2008 Albert York continues at Taxter & Spengemann Anton Henning "German Enlightenment" continues at Zach Feuer Gallery until November 26 Richard Prince, "Canal Zone" is at Gagosian until December 20th, 2008