In his cover story for the current issue of Art in America, Alex Greenberger profiles DAVID DIAO's efforts to "hijack the history of modernism to make it more inclusive":

"Diao’s works are laced with allusions—mainly to paintings by the likes of Kazimir Malevich, Robert Motherwell, and, of course, Newman—but when Diao makes his references, he does so by undermining his source material. He seems to express reverence for all these European and American painters before knocking them down a peg. [...] In his work, Diao fights fire with fire, wrestling his way into the canon by any means necessary. As artist Michelle Grabner, who included Diao in the section of the 2014 Whitney Biennial that she curated, put it, 'He’s basically giving us new histories.'"

— Alex Greenberger, Art in America