Since his emergence in New York in the 1960s, David Diao has always been one of the greatest critics of western abstract painting by being one of its greatest practitioners. From his long running dialogue with postwar giant Barnett Newman, Diao has now reached back, once again, to Rietveld and de Stijl, to question the very foundations of European modernism, while making the powerful case for the relevance of his own work. Diao continues to show new paths forward from the art history he has helped to create. — Greg Allen