Exhibition // Beth Letain: ‘The Company She Keeps’ at Peres Projects

Whose company does Beth Letain keep? She maintains the assertive markmaking of Franz Kline, with more restraint, and the calculation of Donald Judd, with greater viscosity. Letain employs an almost Albersian understanding of color relations, without spelling it out, and revels in the offkilter frivolity of Jean Arp’s collage, without purporting chance. Her animated color blocking and respiring negative space evoke none other than Sadie Benning (and, accordingly, the title of her exhibition posits an implicit femininity). But in ‘The Company She Keeps’ at Peres Projects, Beth Letain is distinctly her own party. To say her work is derivative denies its authenticity; to say it is devoid of reference refutes the artist’s command of the past.