Spotlight

Brice Marden

Brice Marden is one of those big name American painters who often get cited in discussions about abstraction and minimalism and the way that painting has evolved in the last 20 years, but his work is very little known over here.

Brice Marden is one of those big name American painters who often get cited in discussions about abstraction and minimalism and the way that painting has evolved in the last 20 years, but his work is very little known over here.

The Serpentine's exhibition is very welcome and concentrates on his work in the last 10 years, in particular the previously unseen Attendants' series - a group of six new paintings made between 1996 and 1999. So there's none of the minimal, monochromatic panels that first made his name in the 1960s. Instead, there's a new exuberance and energy, with ribbons of paint winding their way across the canvas. He paints with his brush tied to the end of a long stick, allowing his arm to swoop and the brush to dance, the lines of paint looping and linking and looking very much like the children of Chinese calligraphy and Jackson Pollock's great works of the 1950s. Which is not to say that they are derivative paintings - these are influences which Marden acknowledges and clearly enjoys.

The Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London W2 (020-7402 6075)