The Easel

22nd August 2017

Mary Heilmann’s New Dia Show Places Her among the (Male) Icons of Minimalism

Hillarie Sheets | Artsy | 30th June 2017

Being a female ceramicist was not a promising start for an aspiring artist in 1960’s New York. Heilmann shifted to equally unfashionable painting and while she wasn’t ignored, she wasn’t celebrated either. That is now changing. “The unassuming quality of her work lulls you in and then you realize all the quirks and careful counterbalancing that take place within the geometric and color combinations.” A short video (4 min) is here.

Explore the Weird World of the Symbolists at the Guggenheim

Jennifer Krasinski | The Village Voice | 16th August 2017

In Belle Epoque Paris, some artists were articulating the emerging modern world. Others sought refuge in spiritual themes, loosely grouped around Symbolism. This latter movement held a series of Salon exhibitions but their work was kitsch – it was an art dead end. The Sublime, though, is a concept with enduring appeal. It has regularly been revisited in the last century, most spectacularly by Mark Rothko.

Nigerian Artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby Is Painting the Afropolitan Story in America

Diane Solway | W Magazine | 15th August 2017

Bio piece on Crosby whose international reputation is growing in leaps and bounds. Born in regional Nigeria she has since settled in the US. Winning a plethora of prizes has brought her to the notice of major collecting institutions. Prices for her work at auction have risen accordingly. One of Crosby’s themes is the casual racism she experiences: “Sometimes the best critiques are just holding up a mirror so people see their reflection.”

“Drink That You May Live”: Ancient Glass from the Yale University Art Gallery

Alain Truong | Alaintruong.com | 4th August 2017

Glass objects were appearing in Mesopotamia earlier than 2000BC. Improvements in manufacturing accumulated steadily but the big step forward came with glass blowing in the first century BC. From this point glass started replacing metal and ceramic items in the average household. All of which doesn’t answer the burning question – how does a glass object survive for thousands of years?

Mamma Mia! Emma Hart’s Cute Yet Sinister Max Mara Art Prize For Women Work

Emily Gosling | Creative Review | 21st July 2017

Part review, part artist bio. Hart trained as a photographer but used the proceeds of a major art prize to study ceramics. The result, her first solo exhibition, is a family of hanging ceramic “heads”. “I had an epiphany that in Deruta I saw the maiolica patterns … Could patterns harness or capture the problems of repetitive human behaviour?”

Power in Simplicity: How This Modern Photographer Mastered His Style

Coralie Kraft | Lensculture | 1st August 2017

Sheeler started photography as a side line. But the images he captured of modernizing America have become his most enduring work. One critic describes his images of the Ford manufacturing plant as an “epic survey of the Industrial Sublime. Ninety years later, the excitement Sheeler felt in the presence of these magnificent structures — monuments to utility, geometry, force — remains palpable.”

While You Weren’t Looking, Yayoi Kusama Sneakily Built Herself Her Own Museum in Tokyo

Stephanie Eckardt | W Magazine | 15th August 2017

Yayoi Kusama is immensely popular. Her travelling retrospective, open for 11 weeks in Washington, attracted over 500,000 visitors. Recently, and without much fanfare, she announced the imminent opening of a museum in Tokyo dedicated to her own works. Its centerpiece will be her “infinity rooms”. Expect more queues.

15th August 2017

Painting for Pleasure

Robin Simon | Literary Review | 7th August 2017

It’s just as well that Gainsborough was a great portrait painter – his interpersonal relationships were often lamentable. One of the many he quarreled with was Joshua Reynolds, the Royal Academy president. Friction arose not just from rivalry but also different artistic styles. As one critic notes “Where Reynolds would paint you a portrait full of classical allusions and gravitas, Gainsborough would show you at ease and full of sparkle.”

Holding Up the Torch: Walter Hopps and the World of Art

Scott Timberg | Los Angeles Review of Books | 29th June 2017

Hobbs discovered art at fifteen, opened his first gallery at 21 and co-founded the legendary Ferus Gallery at 24. But being a dealer wasn’t him – “a salesman in every way other than financial”. He switched to curating and is now recognized as a major influence on American contemporary art. An excerpt from a recently released biography, where Hobbs discusses Frank Stella and Andy Warhol, is here.

Should museums be able to sell their art? This museum says its future depends on it

Dayana Morales Gomez | PBS Newshour | 9th August 2017

Having lost money for years, the Berkshire Museum has a choice – raise money by selling artworks or risk closure. Among the works to go are treasured paintings by Norman Rockwell. Some local media outlets are upset by the plan – a “profound spiritual loss to the community” according to one. Regional museum directors are reportedly more sympathetic, one commending the plan for its “clearheaded honesty”.

A Disastrous Damien Hirst Show in Venice

Andrew Russeth | ARTnews | 5th August 2017

As the hubbub about the Venice Biennale dies down a critic revisits the Damien Hirst show. “[U]ndoubtedly one of the worst exhibitions of contemporary art staged in the past decade … ultimately snooze-inducing”. Hirst is presumably unfazed by this.  “[T]he collector class really, really loves it” and, for many works, have snapped up “the “coral” edition, the “treasure” edition, and the “copy edition.”

Meet Singularity Black, the Blackest Paint on the Market

Claire Voon | Hyperallergic | 11th August 2017

Anish Kapoor caused uproar when he secured exclusive artistic use of Vantablack, a high tech black paint. One artist retaliated by creating the “pinkest pink” and making it available to everyone – except Kapoor. A new black with virtually no reflectivity has now been released. Branded Singularity Black, it also has the ability to make an object “so black that your brain can’t really figure it out”.

Gauguin: It’s Not Just Genius vs Monster

Jason Farago | The New York Times | 9th August 2017

Gauguin’s sojourns in Tahiti have made him one of art history’s seriously bad boys. His misdeeds limit our perspective on his work, a situation that a Chicago exhibition seeks to change. Before Tahiti there were carvings and ceramics. These “gloriously uncouth” pieces have the “bold contours and patches of colour pigment that characterize Gauguin’s mature painting … and had no need of Polynesian daydreams.”

Lawrence Alma Tadema At Leighton House

Harry Seymour | Candid | 16th July 2017

Alma-Tadema was the Victorian society painter par excellence. Hugely popular, his specialty was paintings of antiquity populated with Victorian characters. They have long been regarded as “sickeningly twee” but current opinion is shifting in his favour. His paintings, exemplars of “painterly technique”, expressed a view of the world as seen from Britain at the height of empire.

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