“All that is solid melts into air,” in the ephemeral world of Edward Bekkerman’s “Dream” and “Spirit” paintings, abstract-looking images that are in fact as richly and minutely detailed as an illuminated manuscript penned by a Medieval monk. Rather than the common interpretation of this phrase made famous by Marx—which continues, “all that is holy is profaned” —Bekkerman’s work expresses precisely the opposite, discovering the mystical in the otherwise ordinary, transmogrifying superficial reality into a spirit world.
— Phoebe Hoban is a New York-based writer who covers
art and culture for a variety of publications.
Her biography of the artist Alice Neel, Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty,
was published by St. Martin’s Press in December, 2010.
Her biography of Lucian Freud, Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open,
was published by Amazon and Houghton Mifflin (New Harvest) in 2014
— Jonathan Goodman
Art critic, professor at Prague University,
professor at Parsons The New School For Design
— Alexander D. Borovsky
Head of the Department of Contemporary Art
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg