Reading the Art World episode nine: a conversation with Todd Bradway — curator, editor and artist based in New York City. We discuss his most recent book and exhibition, Landscape Painting Now: From Pop Abstraction to New Romanticism.
A lot of the painting in my book that is of interest right now: it’s representational, it’s familiar, it’s not realist in the traditional sense. It is varying degrees of abstraction, varying degrees of blowing up the perceptual grid, in a way. It feels radical but yet familiar. It’s got a little element of danger to it… but it’s still “known,” on some level. — Todd Bradway
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Order the book here .
During Bradway’s twenty years working in publishing, he has edited and produced over fifty books. In 2019, Bradway edited the survey Landscape Painting Now, where he explores the metaphorical relationship between painting and landscape.
I chose this book because it brings attention to landscape painting as an active and vital part of 20th first century art, taking a really global viewpoint of the field over the last 70 years. The book features more than eighty contemporary artists—both established and emerging—from various countries. Organized into six chapters, each representing a recurring theme Bradway identifies in contemporary landscape painting — Realism and Beyond, Post-Pop Landscapes, New Romanticism, Constructed Realities, Abstracted Topographies and Complicated Vistas.
Last month, I visited Bradway’s insightfully curated exhibition in New York, “Unnatural Nature: Post-Pop Landscapes," which featured 28 contemporary landscape artists. The exhibition is presented concurrently at Acquavella's New York and Palm Beach locations (on view through June 10th). It is also being developed into a large-scale exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art for May 2025.
Works by Adrian Berg and Nicole Wittenberg on view in Unnatural Nature: Post-Pop Landscapes, on view at Aquavella Gallery, New York, April 21 - June 10, 2022.
Installation view by Kent Pell.
New York Artists
Henni Alftan, Hurvin Anderson, Gideon Appah, Jules de Balincourt, Hayley Barker, Adrian Berg, Jennifer Coates, Ann Craven, Lois Dodd, Maureen Gallace, Sky Glabush, Isca Greenfield-Sanders, Daniel Heidkamp, David Hockney, Yvonne Jacquette, Jon Joanis, Yuka Kashihara, Alex Katz, Makiko Kudo, Patricia Leite, John McAllister, William Monk, Laurie Nye, Nicolas Party, Lisa Sanditz, Wayne Thiebaud, Nicole Wittenberg, and Matthew Wong.
Palm Beach Artists
Jennifer Coates, Lois Dodd, Isca Greenfield-Sanders, Daniel Heidkamp, Jon Joanis, Yuka Kashihara, Makiko Kudo, Lisa Sanditz, Wayne Thiebaud, and Nicole Wittenberg.
Learn more about Reading the Art World here.