THE EXHIBITION Ellsworth Kelly

WEEK IN REVIEW

David Benedict
Friday 27 June 1997 23:02 BST
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A retrospective of the American abstract artist Ellsworth Kelly, 74 years old and still going strong. A colour-field painter, he banishes draughtsmanship and brushwork and works instead with rectangular or carefully cut and shaped canvases consisting of bold, bright, flat fields of uninterrupted colour.

David Cohen thrilled to Kelly's immed-iate dynamic presence and lingering aesthetic effect. The consummate master of the shaped canvas ... his works manage to be at once blatant and subtle." " An outstandingly optimistic experience ... He seems temperamentally incapable of painting a gloomy picture," sang The Times. "So sensuous are these colours that you soon find yourself stepping up close to each canvas to be engulfed in the almost physical sensation of pure scarlet or intense lemon yellow," exulted The Telegraph. "Has the power to astonish and, occasionally, to give intense pleasure ... Lean, spare, orderly and exquisite," welcomed the Standard. "Tasteful, dumb and unengaging," asserted The Mail on Sunday.

At the Tate Gallery (0171-887 8000) to 7 September.

OK, so it looked better at the Guggenheim. Never mind that, open your mind and just go, go, go.

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