Seeing an exhibition by Milton Resnick is always a poignant experience, and the current show at the Milton Resnick and Pat Passloff Foundation is no exception. Plus, the Foundation has paired late Resnick with Matthew Wong paintings, because apparently Resnick’s work had been a powerful influence on Wong, both artists wrote phenomenal poems about poetics, art, their states of mind, and both were quite depressed when the paintings in the show were done, albeit for different reasons. Resnick, whose poor health prohibited him from painting large abstract oils, was miserable about his physical handicaps, and had resorted to making small figurative oils and gouaches on paper. Wong was on the autism spectrum, had Tourette’s syndrome, and been chronically depressed since childhood. Both men committed suicide, Resnick at age 87, Wong at 35. Though, the exhibition successfully suggests overlaps between the artists, their individual strengths are more notable when their work is viewed separately, as the emotional weight of Resnick’s is overpowering. Throughout his life, Resnick’s abstractions had always been profoundly moving, but these late paintings, with figures enveloped by palpitatingly murky spaces, are so skinless and vulnerable that their tears and fears hit deep in the gut. Wong’s paintings tend to have lonely, alienated, perhaps even paranoid figures in uncomfortable spaces defined by the many artistic styles he experimented in. The Wong collection at this show, though including some of the same paintings (plus others) from a sprawling and uneven exhibition at Cheim & Reade last year, is quite strong. As a bonus, a few poems by each artist are printed on the gallery walls, and a book of Resnick poems is available at the front desk. The show remains up through Feb. 10. On Nov. 15, The NY Studio School will celebrate the book launch of an anthology, transcribed and edited by Geoffrey Dorfman, of talks made by Resnick between 1968-72 at the School, with a conversation between Dorfman and David Reed.

Geoffrey Dorfman The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation