The Easel

3rd October 2017

GALLERY ESSAY: Is The Painting Counting?

Morgan Meis | Royal Academy of Arts | 23rd September 2017

When Jasper Johns was starting out abstract expressionism reigned supreme, asking ‘big’ questions like ‘what does painting do’. Johns had different interests, painting mundane objects like flags. Such paintings, argues Morgan Meis, are elusive. “.. if I paint the number ‘2’ on a canvas, have I brought that number into existence? Is the painting now a ‘2’? Or is it a painting of a ‘2’?

Art does not uncover what is hidden, or resolve itself into clear, declarative statements – this means this, that means that. Rather, in art, meaning is a glimpse of reality, like something seen through a periscope. Periscope (Hart Crane), is not a puzzle to be solved. It is, in the end, a simple painting composed of simple images. Yet those images are resonant with metaphors of the sea, of depths, of longing, loss, secrets and the mystery of meaning.”

A major retrospective of the American artist Jasper Johns, “Something Resembling Truth” has just opened at the Royal Academy of Arts. This essay is reproduced with the permission of the Royal Academy and Morgan Meis.

Why the Guggenheim’s Controversial Dog Video Is Even More Disturbing Than You Think

Ben Davis | artnet news | 29th September 2017

New York’s Guggenheim has run into ferocious criticism over disturbing videos of animals in a new show of Chinese art. Removing the most controversial items has only brought accusations of censorship. Claims of animal mistreatment are rejected by some as hypersensitivity Are there cross-cultural misunderstandings? Widespread mistreatment of animals on factory farms scarcely rates a mention.

Leonardo da Vinci may have painted nude Mona Lisa

Charles Bremner | The Times | 29th September 2017

Materials technology is upending many agreed art attributions. It turns out that a known, but obscure, Renaissance sketch may have been by none other than – gasp – Leonardo. Experts are almost certain that he painted a (lost) nude version of the Mona Lisa.  Some evidence suggests that the sketch in question was part of his preparation for that work. All will be revealed in an exhibition planned for 2019.

‘Kinesthesia’ exhibit in Palm Springs spotlights kinetic art in breathtaking new dimensions

Christopher Knight | LA Times | 27th September 2017

Kinetic art – art that moves – may boast Duchamp and Calder but has since been tainted by lesser talents. Is it just a “clever gimmick?” No, it’s the real deal, this writer concludes. “Seemingly out of left field. Kosice worked on his wild “Hydrospatial City” installation for 26 years, starting in 1946. Twenty suspended architectural constructions in clear acrylic are like topsy-turvy space stations hovering in fluid darkness.”

The new Chapman brothers show is delightful and disturbing – and you need to see it

Tim Smith-Laing | Apollo | 2nd October 2017

Controversy is a key part of Dinos and Jake Chapman’s oeuvre – as is their Goya fixation. Their latest show, which this writer thinks puts them “at the top of their game”, features numerous Goya prints to which they have added colour or glitter – “possibly the prettiest thing the Chapmans have ever produced”. And then there are bronze casts of … suicide-bomb vests. More controversy, one presumes.

Face to Face

Barry Schwabsky | The Nation | 28th September 2017

What does a portraitist see? Giacometti looked past the individual in order to highlight the being. ”Neel’s art crosses Giacometti’s, traveling in the opposite direction—from particularity toward universality. Still, Neel’s portraits leave room for the sitter’s sense of self that survives all the designations of an individual’s place in society. [These two] show us, in different ways, not the face, but how the face is made.”

Face to Face

Peter Schjeldahl | The New Yorker | 28th September 2017

On the centenary of Rodin’s death New York’s Met has mounted a huge show. Rodin’s career was slow to get going but this didn’t dent his confidence. He was, as one critic puts it, “a man of nineteenth century amplitude and not twentieth century doubt”. His portrayal of skin, his choice of poses were so modern that he “wrenched figurative sculpture … and sent it tumbling into modernity … the greatest sculptor since Bernini.”

26th September 2017

Basquiat: Boom for Real, Barbican review – the myth explored

Sarah Kent | the arts desk | 22nd September 2017

There is some skepticism about Basquiat. Snobbery, racism, envy, the wildness of his art – all perhaps play a role. In addition sky-high prices have meant that very little of his work is viewable in public collections. So what is the verdict on Basquiat’s first London retrospective? High energy art, one critic comments, “wholly fresh … jazzy and garrulous, and surprisingly visually powerful”. An interview with the curator is here.

How Alexander Calder Became America’s Most Beloved Sculptor

Jed Perl | Smithsonian.com | 19th September 2017

By 1930, Calder had begun to be noticed, at least by other artists. Late in that year he visited Mondrian in his Paris studio. “Calder later observed, “It was Mondrian who made me abstract”. Calder was beginning to contemplate a new kind of abstract sculpture—the sculptures that would emerge at the Galerie Percier in Paris scarcely six months later and establish him as one of the most radical artists of his time.”

Fred Williams in the You Yangs

John McDonald | johnmcdonald.com | 21st September 2017

Unlike colonial era artists Fred Williams didn’t think of Mother England when observing Australia’s landscape. Its defining character, for him, was a “random scatter of elements with no focal point”. And he deployed the vocabulary of abstraction to express its spaciousness. The result was revolutionary – “From the oldest landscape in the world … something we’d never seen before.” Background on the artist is here.

The Eternal Seductive Beauty of Feathers

Burkhard Bilger | The New Yorker | 25th September 2017

Great writing. If high fashion is art surely this owes much to exquisite realization. Enter the plumassier. “In the finished collection, almost every outfit bore a striking embellishment: a coat of arms, an embroidered badge, a feathered breastplate, tufted sleeves. These were refined, modern designs, yet they had a rude vitality—as if they might peel from the cloth at any moment and take flight.”

Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell, at the National Gallery, London; Degas: A Passion for Perfection at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Rachel Campbell-Johnston | The Times | 9th September 2017

Degas closely aligned with the Impressionist group but in many ways was different. Painting landscapes outdoors was not for him. He preferred half-lit interiors … and nudes. Behind a difficult personality was a relentless innovator. Degas’ approach to the nude was “audacious … a collision with the whole history of aesthetics. He was not concerned with the final, or finished, or even the successful”. More images are here.

The Surprising History (and Future) of Paperweights

Chantel Tattoli | The Paris Review | 20th September 2017

Cheap paper led to more letters and documents, for which people needed … paperweights. By the 1860’s the novelty had worn off but not before glassmakers achieved stunning levels of technical and artistic proficiency. A century later, a revival, this time without the merest hint of functional purpose. A video on paperweight masterpieces (46 min) is here.

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