To call the oil paintings of Eyvind Earle "landscapes" is accurate but very sorely wanting. For more than seventy years, Earle turned his unique refracting eye on what he called the "stupendous infinity of nature," interpreting what he saw through a long lens shaped by a very particular kind of mythopoeia.
Bob Krasner has spent years training his eye to resist the obvious. While the city screams for attention, his photography work insists on quiet. The result is a photographic practice rooted in restraint, patience, and a near-radical commitment to looking slowly. His latest body of work, unveiled last week and now on view through Feb. 22 at Ki Smith Gallery on the Lower East Side, feels like a controlled exhale inside one of the most visually aggressive environments on earth.
The British artist Andy Goldsworthy moved to Penpont, a village in southwest Scotland, in 1986, when he was thirty. The area's initial appeal was twofold. Property was cheap, which meant that Goldsworthy and his wife at the time, Judith Gregson, could acquire an unrenovated stone building that had likely once stored grain. This structure could serve as a workspace and, for a while, as a rough-and-ready home.
I work outside, carving and shaping the stone. Outside my house, I have a table, an extension cord, and tools. It's very cold and I have to wear all my winter clothes. When it's too cold, I do the filing and finishing work inside after I shape it outside. I listen to all kinds of music. I listen to Eminem all the time; his albums are all my favorites. For drawings, I work at Kinngait Studios or at home on my kitchen table.