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Big, Bold, and Undeniably Ambitious Jonathan Prince at the Sculpture Garden
The work of Massachusetts based artist Jonathan Prince, currently on view till November 18 at the Sculpture Garden in the atrium of the old IBM building in New York City under the title Torn Steel, like the artist himself who resembles Julian Schnabel, is big, bold and undeniably ambitious. But underneath the swagger of the man and his work – this based on an in-depth studio visit, a couple of wide-ranging conversations of the inquiring kind, and of course the four, eye to mind-grabbing, sculptures on view – lives a sensitive soul, albeit it on top of a simmering volcano, whose innards house an acute and restless intellect that appears to know no bounds. By Ed Rubin.

The Extravagant Constructions of Joyce Melander-Dayton
While the title of Santa Fe based artist Joyce Melander-Dayton's current outing at the June Kelly Gallery in New York City reads Extravagant Constructions, an apt title, especially when you are standing up close and studying the artist's intricately bejeweled craftsmanship and her use of materials and patterning – think Faberge Egg or the Gobelin Tapestries – it could just as easily have been labeled, depending on where you are standing in relation to her work, where your brain is at the moment, and how well you know the artist's past history, Musical Meditations, Celestial Compositions, or How I Keep My Life Together. For the exhibition is all of this and more, the more being, quietly beautiful in the extreme, and very much alive. By Edward Rubin.

Dean Project- New York. Travellers in time, Wedding banquet, Brueghel, 2010, 17” x 24” C-print, Courtesy of Dean Project.

Riding the Crest of the Latin American Art Wave
This past November, "Pinta: The 2010 Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art Show" moved its four-day, New York City celebration of Latin American art from its Chelsea habitat to pier 92 on the Hudson River, into the same location made famous by The Armory Show. With daylight streaming in from the pier's surrounding windows, the new and improved "Pinta" with larger and brighter aisles, more galleries and art installations, a bar and café for the public, and a private, upper level VIP section--with roughly four times more space than the old Pinta--generously gifted its visitors and exhibitors alike with more breathing and thinking room, as well as strolling, eating, and oh my tired feet, resting options. Although the art of legendary artists Fernando Botero, Wilfredo Lam, Lygia Clark, and Ana Mendieta, as they did in the first three editions of Pinta, took their customary bows, for the most part, it was the work of the young contemporary Latin American artists whose fresh and unique ways at looking at life that supplied the majority of the fair's visual excitement. Though many paintings, sculptures, and a few videos were on view, it was the quietly inventive work of the photographers – digital and otherwise – that depicted life, in its myriad postures, most interestingly. By Edward Rubin.

Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera
For over half a century, Norman Rockwell chronicled American life with pictures that seemed to spring from the heartland. In fact, the pictures he created appear so natural and spontaneous it's hard to believe they were carefully set up and photographed by Rockwell and his assistants, often in his studio. Brooklyn Museum's exhibit "Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera," explores the artist not as a painter or illustrator, but as a photographer who carefully set up his scenes much as a film director must work. Curator Ron Schick has displayed these study photographs, as well as drawings and tear sheets, alongside the actual pictures to give the viewer a vivid picture of how the artist worked. By Paulanne Simmons.

What Goes Around Comes Around
It is somewhat ironic that Julian Schnabel's exhibition, "Julian Schnabel: Art and Film" (September 1, 2010-January 2, 2011), at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto's version of New York City's MoMA, is following in the footsteps of the museum's King Tut exhibition, as both men are known for doing things in a very big way, King Tut with his tomb, and Schnabel, highly in evidence here, with his titanic canvases that all but dwarf the common man. For the fifty-nine year old Schnabel, who was all the rage with his smashed plate paintings during the late 70s and early 80s, before he eventually fell off his art world pedestal, this exhibition – the largest since his 1987 Whitney Museum Retrospective – is tantamount to a Second Coming. The "ball has come back into his court" as he gratefully acknowledged during his press preview. By Ed Rubin.

Murakami @ Versailles
Once again the battle between preserving classical French culture from the ugly claws of globalization has been making headlines in France. This time around it is provocateur artist Takashi Murakami, Japan’s answer to Andy Warhol, whose recent exhibition of comic based manga and anime inspired paintings, sculptures, and one rug, at the Château Versailles and its gardens (September 14–December 12, 2010), raised the hackles of Prince Sixte-Henri de Bourbon-Parme a descendent of the French king Louis XIV and the Coordination de la Défense de Versailles, an organization specifically formed to stop artist Jeff Koons from exhibiting at the palace in 2008. The suit, intending to give Koons and his giant metal dog the boot, initiated by another Royal, the prince’s nephew, was dismissed by the court. By Ed Rubin.

Iranians Express Themselves through Modern Art
After the controversial electoral candidacy of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the violent demonstrations following in Iran, the exhibit "Iran Inside Out" couldn't be more relevant. The exhibit will be open from June 26 until September 5, 2009 at the Chelsea Museum of Art. By Suzanne Trouve Feff

In the hubbub of New York, discover a haven of peace at The Rubin Museum of Art.
Strictly dedicated to Himalayan Art, the Rubin Museum of Art presents the exhibit, "Nagas: Hill People of India," until September 21, 2009. The Indian photographer Pablo Bartholomew explores the Nagas civilization, a people between tradition and transition. By Suzanne Trouve Feff.

Fashion Queens are at the MET.
Can models be the muses of the designer, creating themselves the fashions for their generation? This is the theme of the summer exhibit at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, open until August 9, 2009. By Suzanne Trouve Feff.

The New Museum spotlights emerging artists from around the world with the exhibit "Younger than Jesus"
The New Museum, a freshly renovated, trendy museum of the Lower East Side, is presenting the exhibit "The Generational: Younger Than Jesus" until June 14, 2009. Fifty contemporary artists are being presented from all over the world with a single unifying theme: born in the 80's, they are all younger then Jesus when he died. (That is estimated to be age 33.) By Suzanne Trouve Feff.

Dive into Sun K. Kwak's ocean at the Brooklyn Museum.
In the Brooklyn Museum, more than three miles of masking tape and seven weeks have been used to transform the fifth floor Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery into an amazing abstract art installation. By Suzanne Trouve Feff.

"Caillebotte: Impressionist Paintings from Paris to the Sea"
Brooklyn Museum's "Caillebotte: Impressionist Paintings from Paris to the Sea"is the first major showing of Caillebotte's work presented in New York City in more than thirty years. By Paulanne Simmons.