The Manhattan Art Review's Best & Worst Art Shows of 2024
(In no particular order)
Best:
- Francis Ford Coppola - Megalopolis - Amazon
- Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Max Beckmann, Edward Burra, Vija Celmins, Prunella Clough, René Daniëls, Giorgio de Chirico, Beauford Delaney, Peter Doig, Denzil Forrester, Jean Hélion, Satoshi Kojima, Lotte Maiwald, Mark Rothko, Martin Wong - The Street, Curated by Peter Doig - Gagosian
- Francesca Woodman - Gagosian
- Janiva Ellis - StackedPlot - 47 Canal
- Charles Ray - Matthew Marks
- Francis Picabia - Femmes - Michael Werner
- Ant Farm , Gretchen Bender, Skip Blumberg, Eli Coplan, Stan Douglas, Barbara Ess, Harun Farocki, Lee Friedlander, Takeshi Murata, Muntadas and Reese, Radical Software, Aldo Tambellini, Not Channel Zero - On Television - Carriage Trade
- Marysia Paruzel - How To Make It In America - Jenny's
- Frank Walter - To Capture a Soul - The Drawing Center
Honorable mentions:
- Sabina Maria van der Linden - Das Letzte/The Latest - Gandt
- Christopher Wool - See Stop Run - See Stop Run
- John Wesley - WesleyWorld: Works on Paper and Objects 1961-2004 - Pace
- Frank Stella - Recent Sculpture - Jeffrey Deitch
- James Rosenquist - The Holy Roman Empire through Checkpoint Charlie - Castelli Gallery
Worst:
- Simon Denny - Dungeon - Petzel
- Öyvind Fahlström, Genevieve Goffman, Jack Goldstein, Matthias Groebel, Peter Halley, Yngve Holen, Tishan Hsu, Josh Kline, Isabelle Frances McGuire, Seth Price, Harris Rosenblum, Avery Singer, Suzanne Treister, Anicka Yi - Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) - Petzel
- Jennifer Guidi - Rituals - Gagosian
- Jamian Juliano-Villani - It - Gagosian
- Maurizio Catellan - Sunday - Gagosian
- Chuck Close - Red, Yellow and Blue: The Last Paintings - Pace
- teamLab - The World of Irreversible Change - Pace
- Josh Kline - Social Media - Lisson
In spite of this being the year where I lost my patience with Kritic's Korner, and a pretty mediocre collection of shows in my memory, this is also the first time my best of list started to feel crowded. The honorable mentions are for shows I have a particular affection for that didn't have quite enough heft to fit in. I guess that's what honorable mention means... I didn't review "On Television" at Carriage Trade, but it wasn't until I was coming up with this list that I decided it edged out "The Madness of Crowds" by a hair. I didn't review Frank Walter either because it was summer, I almost forgot about it entirely even though it might be my favorite if I had to pick one. I think the bests are all pretty predictable and self-explanatory choices and, as usual, only two solo shows by younger artists made the cut. Less usually, all the worst shows are from big Chelsea-based galleries. Only "Multi-User Dungeon" involves any "emerging" artists, and it probably wouldn't even be on there if it wasn't dragged down as the companion piece to the Simon Denny show, which was definitively the worst thing I saw in 2024. That list clearly showcases my active hostility towards prints on canvas, 3D printing, paintings outsourced to Chinese workshops, and artists not making their own work in general, and I'm fine with that. I guess every year I include some summary thoughts about my general outlook on the state of the art world, but I've expressed those at length elsewhere recently.
To my dismay, I'll probably bring Kritic's Korner back in 2025 because I didn't actually realize how integral reviewing is to my experience of art. I did a few rounds of shows without writing any reviews in the last couple of months and it's like I barely saw them at all; for instance, the Jeff Wall show is great but I didn't actually think about it, which for me is a weird and unfulfilling experience. Maybe all I needed was a break. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in...