Unlike a previous review of this monumental show, this piece puts Michelangelo’s art in a biographical context. At age 30 his drawings for a fresco The Battle for Cascina constituted a “zenith”. Thereafter his art became more personal, seeking to express the dreamlike but unattainable “unbodied beauty” of the human form. “Hence the air of melancholy and sorrow that pervades so much of his art.”
As widely reported, the Berkshire Museum is in a dispute over the sale of key works. Adjacent to this is perhaps a more important public interest issue – should museums sell artworks that they rarely, if ever, put on display? Why not deaccession the “bottom 1%” to fund free admission? “[Museum directors], how much more art that you can’t afford to conserve, and have no space to display, do you really want?”
Something of a reminiscence of 1960’s California, and Wayne Thiebaud’s emergence as an important artist. Being labelled (incorrectly) a Pop artist probably helped draw some attention but the appeal of his art was evident almost immediately. Commented one critic “the world … isn’t perfect, except perhaps one little part of it, to which we can briefly retreat via these paintings and glimpse the way all things ought to be.”
Painting in black and white helps draw attention to a subject or technique. Originally conceived of for religious works, grisaille is now just another part of the artist’s toolkit as a London show demonstrates. The show includes a light installation by Olafur Eliasson, a room lit in sodium yellow which suppresses perception of colour, thus creating a monochrome world. An exhibition review is here.
Leonilson died young, suffering not just from AIDS but also loneliness. He had come to prominence in post-dictatorship Brazil by giving his work a uniquely personal tone. Then came an AIDS diagnosis and his work focused even more closely on selfhood. He “frequently framed imagination as fact and fact as imagination, all while maintaining the confessional or diaristic tone of his autobiographical project.”
A current exhibition of minimalist art, notes this writer, has nothing whatever to say about the art world’s topics du jour – gender, identity, politics. What a relief! “[T]here is nothing minimal about minimalism. Colour and shape — the essential building blocks of art — are a bottomless box of Lego. I came into art to see things that have not been shown before, not to be lectured by unhappy curators with identity issues.”
Outsider art goes back at least to Jean Dubuffet’s Art Brut and probably earlier. It’s the work of artists – variously self-taught or suffering from particular ailments – who sit outside the mainstream. Their art, too, is unorthodox but often astonishingly imaginative. Few of these artists, it seems, transition into the mainstream but that hasn’t stopped this category of art enjoying growing recognition.
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.” [Editor: in December it was reported that Hirst sold over $330m of his works from this Venice show]
“Popularity,” says Perry “is a serious business.” Via his art and associated media activity, he has become a popular – and astute – social commentator on contemporary Britain. So why does he irk some critics? Is it art world anxiety that popularity denotes a lack of seriousness? Or is it that Perry, a potter, wants to show that “craft is also “art,” and that it belongs to us all.” More images are here.
London’s Lisson Gallery made its name by championing unfashionable modern artists. Fifty years later, it is still at it. A new show gathers four such overlooked artists, eliciting the writer’s wholehearted approval. “One gets tired of seeing the same combinations repeatedly. It is like eating in a parody of a Chinese restaurant from the 1950s, where there is only one item in column A and one in column B.”
Balthus had a thing about adolescent girls. Amid the furor about sexual abuse and #MeToo, should New York’s Met comply with a petition and take down an apparently lascivious work? Definitely not, according to this writer. Art is full of sexual imagery. “The danger in the wings is a new Puritanism … The challenge now is to define codes of behavior without throwing out the maps that got us to the place we are now.”
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.
Despite being enmeshed in New York’s art world Neel’s style was immune to its famous art movements. Right from her earliest work she viewed herself as a realist painter, one without an agenda. Her emotionally insightful portraits, including those of pregnant women, now underpin a lofty reputation. She observed “if I hadn’t been an artist, I could have been a psychiatrist.” A video (5 min) is here and images here