In association with Personal Space: Paintings by Scott Kahn at Penn's Arthur Ross Gallery

Finesse, attention to detail, informational overload, and self-absorbing craft are aspects of contemporary art that violate modernist orthodoxies. On the occasion of the Personal Space exhibition, New York Sun art critic and artcritical.com editor David Cohen places Scott Kahn’s paintings within the context of contemporaries as diverse as Mark Greenwold, Fred Tomaselli, Julie Heffernan, and Chuck Close. Following Cohen’s talk, meet the artist at the Arthur Ross Gallery reception and exhibition (runs through October 24, 2004).

David Cohen is art critic for the New York Sun, publisher and editor of the online magazine, artcritical.com, and gallery director at the New York Studio School. Exhibitions he has organized at the Studio School include WATERCOLOR (2002), American Cutout (2003), Lois Dodd: Nudes in the Landscape (2003-04), and drawing surveys of William Tucker (2001), Ruth Miller (2001), and Thomas Nozkowski (2002).

Born in London and educated at the University of Sussex and at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Cohen wrote for leading newspapers and magazines in England and around the world before emigrating to the United States in 1999. His books include Henry Moore in the Bagatelle Gardens, Paris (1993) and Jock McFadyen: A book about a Painter (2001). He also has written substantial catalogue essays on such artists as Henry Moore, S.W. Hayter, C.R.W. Nevinson, Lucian Freud, and Markus Lupertz.