Modernities: Art-Matters in Present

Former editor of Artforum , Masheck here proffers his eclectic enthusiasms in 30 erudite, stimulating essays and reviews illustrated with 37 black-and-white plates. He explores the open-ended possibilities of abstract painting in contemplating Sean Scully's large-scale reliefs, Ross Bleckner's sensuous asceticism and Jonathan Lasker's ``High Disneyesque'' conundrums. Among recent sculpture, he admires Robert Gober's ``nonfurniture'' (which eerily resembles cribs, playpens or industrial sinks) and Maureen Conner's feminist pieces, fashioned out of textiles from disassembled clothing. Sampling the neoexpressionist flowering on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Masheck singles out Judy Rifka's archly iconoclastic urban dystopias and Sigmar Polke's Pop-imbued abstracts. A few essays treat more general themes: in one, Mascheck explains how ``raw art''--whether Neolithic, tribal, Gothic or Romantic--has served the modernist cause. (Dec.)