Roberta Smith , Art In Review, The New York Times, October 15, 2004

‘Before the End (The Last Painting Show)'
Swiss Institute-Contemporary Art
495 Broadway, at Broome Street
SoHo
Through Oct. 23

This informative little show of work from the 1960's was more excavated than organized by the abstract painter Olivier Mosset. It was shown last spring at Le Consortium, an alternative space in Dijon, France. Featuring rarely exhibited works, it reveals 10 first-generation Conceptualists edging their way out of painting toward less material forms of art.

Monochromes are a popular exit strategy, used by Ian Burn in "Blue Reflex" (lustrous dark blue car lacquer on plywood) and by Ian Wilson in "Red Square" (red pigment on fiberglass). Jan Dibbets's farewell takes the form of a stack of eight small, pastel-colored canvases displayed on the floor. Lawrence Weiner takes leave with a tiny red-and-yellow shaped canvas that suggests the work of Frank Stella, as well as the graphic punch of his own Conceptual text wall pieces.

One of the biggest surprises is a relief by Douglas Huebler dated 1964: its aggressively scaled washboard surface and gray monochrome suggest extrapolations from works by Robert Morris and Donald Judd that are so rapid as to be simultaneous.