Jackie Wullschlager makes quite a statement about American artists, in general, and Philip Guston, in particular, in the Financial Times:
No solo Biennale show this century has carried the authority, conviction and delight in a new approach of Philip Guston and the Poets at the Accademia. Late Guston has a vigour and majesty unmatched by any living painter, and within a day of opening this week the show had hogged the attention of the Biennale crowd, and raised the bar for everything else.
This is a triumphant Biennale for American art. While Mark Bradford at the US pavilion offers far and away the best national representation, beyond the Giardini two further shows, the Guggenheim’s Mark Tobey retrospective and Robert Rauschenberg’s silkscreens at the Cini Foundation, are also charismatic and unusual. Together with the Guston, these present a rare picture of the US at mid-20th century: not the familiar macho assertiveness, but an art of meditative subtlety and melancholy, resonant with an America that currently seems uncertain of its place in the world.
Star-spangled Biennale: Americans shine in Venice (Financial Times)
