Matthew Richie (MFA Distinguished Senior Fellow) exhibition at Andrea Rosen, NYC, reviewed by Roberta Smith in the New York Times

Matthew Richie, Weep in Light, 2009

MATTHEW RITCHIE review by Roberta Smith
Published in the New York Times Art In Review section Nov. 12, 2009

Line Shot
Andrea Rosen Gallery
525 West 24th Street, Chelsea

Exhibition on view through Nov. 21, 2009

"It is hard to know if Matthew Ritchie is a genuine polymath or a painter with too many ideas for his own good. The canvases in his latest New York gallery show are some of the best of his career. They have lost the small mythological figures, scribbled equations and sky-chart compositions that once signaled obscure narratives. Instead their cosmic implications inhabit semi-abstract forms and light-rinsed colors, suggesting wheeling planets, meteors, toxic atmospheres and sun showers. “Weep in Light” and “Initial Series” take things a little further with fantastical Rorschach compositions that could be elegantly monstrous heads or crystal formations.

Mr. Ritchie’s narrative lives on in large-scale multimedia musical works like “The Long Count,” which was part of the New Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last month. Synthesizing various American creation myths, it was written and directed by Mr. Ritchie with wonderful music by Aaron and Bryce Dessner. Mr. Ritchie also provided a three-screen video whose images suggest rushing landscapes and aerial views that form the work’s highly effective backdrop.

A related video accompanied by music and text dominates one corner at Rosen. It is surrounded and bisected by lattice-like tangles of line drawn directly on the wall, so the rushing seems to be viewed through fancy goggles. Some of the ink-and-pencil drawings in a second gallery also have Rorschach-like symmetry, and despite the long text keeping them company are most interesting as studies for future paintings. When all is said and done it is still painting that would most benefit from Mr. Ritchie’s undivided attention.

The least appealing element in this show is three-dimensional: the lattice motif recurs on perforated polygonal sculptures that pile up unpleasantly at the entrance and sprawl about the gallery. Made of cast aluminum covered with black epoxy, they look like nothing so much as hip wrought-iron garden furniture." ROBERTA SMITH

See the review here: www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/arts/design/13galleries.html

See Matthew Richie's website here: www.matthewritchie.com/