"Jonathan Lasker: Selective Identity"

FORUM FOR CONTEMPORARY ART

How is this abstract painter different from all other abstract painters? In a show of twenty-one canvases from the '90s, curator David Moos of the Birmingham Museum of Art argues that Jonathan Lasker separates himself from the likes of, say, Mary Heilmann and Davids Row and Reed by virtue of his extreme "self-consciousness." Lasker premeditates his large-scale oils using small studies, a tactic that Moos believes pushes the artist toward Peter Halley's camp. Theoretical apparatus aside, the real test comes, as always, when one stands in a room full of the paintings. Sept. 10-Nov. 6, 1999; Power Plant, Toronto, Dec. 10, 1999-Feb. 27, 2000; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Mar. 30-May 28, 2000; Birmingham Museum of Art, June 25-Sept. 3, 2000.

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