Goldblatt’s images spoke eloquently of South African community values. “I’m not particularly interested in photographing [events but] in the conditions that give rise to events … There was this almost naked fear of The Black. And yet at the same time, there was an intimacy with blacks that far transcended the intimacy that I knew in my own home, with my parents.”
Where does vernacular art – like quilt making – fit in the art world? Should it be compared directly to mainstream art? Or, does it belong in its own category, such as “outsider art”. Categorization seems beside the point if mainstream and self-taught artists have “converged on compositional commonalities that make many people’s eyes respond in equivalent ways.”
There is an unmistakable air of excitement around this artist. Beasley uses garments soaked in resin to form evocative, free-standing shapes or to press into painting-like panels. One writer comments that they “hum with memory and reference, a life’s ordinary baggage preserved beneath an impeccable Old Master shine.”
One source suggests medieval tapestries were proof of a “delicate palate”. Really? In Europe’s stone palaces and churches tapestries were a great way to display wealth, advertise one’s piety, and keep the place warm. What was once a mainstream area of art is now tiny, albeit with some resurgence. A video showing the art form at its most spectacular is here.
After some market chitchat, this piece gets serious about Picasso. A 1905 work portrays a child prostitute, whose services Picasso probably used. “A pretence is created that in painting her, Picasso was a disinterested, compassionate observer of her plight … I’m not in favour of judging the past by contemporary standards, but we allow art to cleanse even the worst crimes. We shouldn’t.”
Finally, after multiple plans and years (decades) of trying, New York’s beloved Frick Collection has an approved renovation. Notably, the contentious removal of its garden that undermined the previous plan has been abandoned. Advocates describe the latest plan as “respectful”; to one opponent it’s “a vote for blandness”. Law suits could be next.
The re-evaluation of Lee Miller continues. Art history remembers her as a model to Man Ray. However, the posthumous discovery of her photographic work makes clear that she was much more. Her early work explored surrealism, followed by photojournalism in WWII and, after that, fashion photography. She reportedly said, “I looked like an angel, but I was a fiend inside”.
Ouch! After positive reviews in Switzerland the Baselitz retrospective has opened in Washington to an absolute pasting. Decrying Baselitz’s “bloated reputation” and odd decision to display his works upside down, the writer continues: “[H]is sense of color is haphazard and his drawing weak … he has never quite managed to tie his influences … into taut and commanding art.”
An early Szeemann exhibition variously involved molten lead, damage to permanent walls and smashing up the outside plaza. Over many important shows he redefined what curators do – show the “unpredictable path of art”. Much better than the above review, though, is an earlier piece. “Curating a show in which nothing could fail was, to Szeemann, a waste of time.”
A couple of years ago it was suggested to Christo that he had avoided London. His response to that remark is, for the next few months, floating in the Serpentine lake. Christo has assured the locals that “Any interpretation is legitimate, critical or positive” Such works may be temporary but, as one writer observes, “the ambition behind it is boundless”.
Many illustrious design studios, such as the Bauhaus, struggled for profitability. Jensen avoided this fate by finding a broad clientele and having a distinctive aesthetic – “combining gleaming sculptural forms and lush ornament. Hammer marks are a unique part of what the house does … [it] almost gives the pieces a little bit of a soul as opposed to bling.”
Facing huge demand for his society portraits, Gainsborough relaxed by drawing landscapes. And he wasn’t just doodling. Unlike highly geometric French landscapes, he showed “picturesque” nature – irregular and meandering. It was a new vision of nature making him the “progenitor of an English landscape tradition” carried forward by Constable and Turner. “He was a one-man avant-garde.”
As art prices rise, so too do the temptations of forgery. Nowadays, both forgery and forgery detection use “serious technology”. “For most of a day, he scanned the painting. Finally, embedded in a speckle of blue, he found a slim fibre … and subjected it to infrared spectroscopy. The fibre turned out to be polypropylene. Perhaps someone had worn a polar fleece while painting the forgery?”
Dorothea Lange was not an obvious candidate to trailblaze documentary photography. She was an upmarket portrait photographer before taking government assignments during the Depression. Her images were sensationally powerful and now form part of America’s visual history. “A camera is a tool,” she once said, “for learning how to see without a camera.”