The Easel

19th February 2019

All the Rembrandts review – human chaos made glorious

Jonathon Jones | The Guardian | 15th February 2019

The self as uniquely human, rather than a divine creation, was a Renaissance idea. Rembrandt seized on it with gusto. His iconic The Night Watch is not a dignified civic portrait but a “celebration of the mixed stuff of humanity“. His self-portraits, displaying plainly the impact of bereavement and misfortune, show “incomparable emotional intelligence … his lust for life sings across the centuries.”

Joan Semmel

Johanna Fateman | 4Columns | 1st February 2019

A career recapitulation, of sorts. Early on, Semmel decided to paint “images that were erotic for women … reimagining the nude without objectifying the person”. For decades she has done just that, mostly painting herself, undaunted by the visible impact of ageing. She is a “rapturous colourist”, adept at showing “the carnal nature of paint. She is the anti-muse.”

Robert Ryman, Relentlessly Inventive Abstract Painter, Is Dead at 88

Andrew Russeth | ARTnews | 9th February 2019

What interested Ryman was the physical reality of an artwork – materials, surface, surroundings. His characteristic use of white paint was simply a way to minimize distractions. Reviewing his prodigious and influential output is like “taking the same commuter train over and over again but never having the same experience twice—and never actually reaching a destination.”

Kader Attia: The Museum of Emotion

Mark Westall | Fad Magazine | 12th February 2019

Don’t expect Attia’s “post-colonial” art to fixate on power politics. He is more interested in the emotional differences between cultures. One of his preoccupations is with what it means to repair. The Western ideal is to erase all signs of injury whereas traditional cultures make no attempt at concealment. “One acknowledges the passing of time, and the other one aims to deny the effects of time.”

The Duel: Has modern architecture ruined Britain?

JS Curl and B Calder | Prospect | 31st January 2019

Can modern architecture improve the aesthetics of heritage-rich towns? No, says one writer; modern design “reduce[s] the infinitely adaptable languages of real architecture to an impoverished vocabulary of monosyllabic grunts.” Protests another – “skyscrapers change the skyline, as … did Victorian town halls. Any language sounds like “grunts” until you listen.”

Florence Knoll Bassett, designer of the modern American office, dies

Robert McFadden | San Francisco Chronicle | 29th January 2019

Orphaned at age 12 Knoll Bassett was then “practically adopted” by Finnish architect Eriel Saarinen. After training in architecture she transformed Knoll, the furniture company, by introducing architectural ideas into office design. Knoll became a “global powerhouse” of modernist design. She often stated “I am not a decorator”. More images are here.

Diane Arbus: In the Beginning, Hayward Gallery

Waldemar Januszczuk | The Times | 17th February 2019

Is Arbus’s photography sympathetic or voyeuristic? Her friends thought her “hugely empathetic”, an impression also conveyed by a show of her early work. Sentimental, though, she was not. Just like her celebrated later work, her early images support the view that Arbus is among the greatest of twentieth century photographers, “prescient [for her] acceptance of difference.”

12th February 2019

The Star of the Silken Screen

David Salle | The New York Review of Books | 21st February 2019

Warhol’s art. He thought “the true substance of photography is the shadow cast by and on its subject. This was the essence of his major innovation, which still reverberates today: the reciprocity between painting and printing. The sheer graphic power of the silkscreen image … confers on any subject a drama of light and shadow, an urgent aesthetic bounty grounded in the photographic now.”

“More famous than famous”: Michael Craig-Martin on the changing nature of “ordinariness”

Matt Alagiah | Its Nice That | 6th February 2019

Ordinary, says Craig-Martin, is more famous than famous. Hence, “a light bulb is more famous than Marilyn Monroe”. This realization led to his signature style – precise line drawings and sculptures of ubiquitous objects.  “My sculptures … aren’t sculptures of things, they’re sculptures of images of things. That play between my object and the reality is very interesting.” A good video (3 min) is here.

Julie Mehretu with Allie Biswas

Allie Biswas | The Brooklyn Rail | 6th February 2019

Mehretu has travelled far – Addis Ababa born but now New York based. Urban imagery has inspired her paintings, “story maps of no location”. Some find her abstract expressionist style frenzied, a criticism also directed at Jackson Pollock. He insisted his works were planned and a reviewer of Mehretu’s show likewise finds structure in her work, describing it as “impressive and authentic”.

Will Gompertz reviews Jeff Koons at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford

Will Gompertz | bbc.com | 9th February 2019

It’s difficult to sit on the fence about Koons but one critic tries: “funny, weird, and surprisingly horrible to look at. I mean that in rather an admiring way.” Others seem to either dislike this show or dislike the show AND Koons. “What was once subversive has now become crass. The show starts brilliantly, but … fades into a tawdry and insipid display of very shiny but rather dull art.”

‘Rockefeller effect’ contributes to Christie’s £5.3bn record total in 2018

Anny Shaw | The Art Newspaper | 7th February 2019

The forecast calamities of Brexit, Trump and slower global growth are not quite yet with us. Christie’s, the market’s largest auction house, has just announced colossal sales figures for 2018. Phillips, Christie’s smaller competitor, has also announced growth in its 2018 sales. As a further sign of bullishness, Christie’s has increased the fees it charges for most art sales.

The Secret Streets of Brassaï & Louis Stettner

Carole Naggar | The New York Review of Books | 8th February 2019

Brassaï and Stettner both cut their artistic teeth on street photography but from there they diverged.  Brassaï avoided improvisation where he could, sometimes giving his images a “frozen” quality. Stettner, whom Brassaï mentored, was all spontaneity. His sympathetic images of New York commuters combine “theatrical composition and voyeuristic opportunism”.

Head and Shoulders above the Rest

Helen Hackett | The Literary Review | 9th February 2019

Why should the “glorious” miniatures of an Elizabethan court painter be of interest to an audience broader than art historians? The answer in a “definitive” biography is that Hilliard not only helped define the English identity but also built a strong “European” reputation. For one writer Hilliard’s cosmopolitan outlook is apposite when confronting the “sad and disorienting effects of Brexit”.

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