The Easel

10th October 2017

Gordon Parks: Collected Works Study Edition

Sean Sheehan | L’Oeil de la Photographie | 10th October 2017

Parks was one of America’s most celebrated photographers of the last century. Starting out as a self-employed society photographer in Chicago he then joined the Farm Security Administration where his images of social injustice carried a distinguishing lyrical aesthetic. A decades-long career at Life magazine showcased a vastly broad talent that included writing and, after Life, film directing. Multiple images are here.

Another Renoir show? But this one is worth it.

Phillip Kennicott | The Washington Post | 6th October 2017

Some critics grind their teeth about Renoir feeling some of his works are akin to happy snaps. Luncheon of the Boating Party is not immune to criticism but is far from lightweight. Technical analysis reveals its careful and “masterful” construction. “Heroic striving on the painter’s part yielded exactly the superficiality he was aiming for, a bibulous moment of fun among a gathering of good looking, high-spirited young people.”

Treading on Euphemisms for Women

Barbara Pollack | Hyperallergic | 6th October 2017

Mao said that ‘women hold up half the sky’. To Lin Tianmiao, an eminent Chinese contemporary artist, that’s not a feminist statement. She takes descriptors of women, such as ‘leftover women’ or ‘soccer mom’, embroiders them into rugs, and then invites viewers to walk on them. It is art that expresses her individual experience as a woman. Just don’t call it feminist. An interesting tug-of-war with an interviewer on this topic is here.

Broken Bones and Marble Thrones: A Night With Jenny Holzer

Hannah Tindle | AnOther | 3rd October 2017

Holzer is renowned for her large scale illuminated displays of text. The offer to install a show at Blenheim Castle must have been irresistible. Ancestral home of Winston Churchill, it was built to commemorate war victories. In contrast, her art expresses skepticism about military power. As one critic puts it “This is not a subtle show, but Blenheim is not a subtle building.”

The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art

Richard Rivera | New York Journal of Books | 2nd October 2017

Vasari was a fearsome gossip. His saving grace was that in 1550 he wrote a book on Italian art and artists that established art history. Artists were viewed as merely skilled labourers but Vasari argued that authorship was all-important. “When Francis I … could write to Leonardo [Da Vinci], Raphael, Michelangelo and humbly request something, anything, by their hand, it marked a drastic change from old ways of

The Anger of the Guns

John Haber | johnhaberarts | 15th September 2017

Has the story of art in the Great War been fully told? Vivid anti-war imagery by Otto Dix and others is well known but only part of this story. Other artists expressed a range of views, not all of which were opposed to the war. “The Met sees an arc from initial enthusiasm at war to horror and revulsion, but it was difficult to separate them even from the start.” Multiple images are here.

Shagged Out: At Frieze 2017

Fisun Güner | The Quietus | 8th October 2017

Some critics clearly had big expectations of Frieze London. Isn’t this the art fair that helps define the cutting edge of new art? By that measure, it disappoints “[I]f this is the new, the new is starting to look old and jaded”. Others are a lot more relaxed “This is a selling fair after all … Frieze is like one big hodge-podge of a jumble sale, and like a jumble sale offers many delights and discoveries.”

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.”

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