The Easel

23rd April 2019

Easel Essay: The Deceptions of Thomas Demand

Morgan Meis | The-Easel | 23rd April 2019

Images were influencing popular culture long before social media. A 1970’s critic observed “our experience is governed by pictures”. The Pictures Generation soon emerged, artists using photography to explore the gap between image and “reality”. They are Thomas Demand’s antecedents.

“Demand’s paper and cardboard models do two very interesting and somewhat contradictory things at the same time. First, the making of the model detaches his final photograph even further from documenting anything in the “real world.” The second important aspect of Thomas Demand’s picture – the faithful documentation of a fabrication. So, it does tell a kind of truth. This is “re-presentation not representation.””

An art historian explains the tough decisions in rebuilding Notre Dame

Jen Kirby | Vox | 16th April 2019

After the Notre Dame cathedral fire the French president declared that he hopes for something “even more beautiful”. Should the aim be historical fidelity or alterations that reflect contemporary tastes? Numerous alterations had been made to the original structure, notably its spire. One option is to consider adding “a visibly contemporary but compatible spire to a medieval building.”

In Venice, artist Luc Tuymans is going against the current

Harriet Lloyd-Smith | Wallpaper | 2nd April 2019

Nothing about Tuymans seems lighthearted. A “spectacular” retrospective displays his trademark paintings based on found images. Painterly and widely influential, they often allude to dark historic events. Figuring out these references is difficult because Tuymans wants his paintings to have multiple layers. Otherwise, he fears, they are just “propaganda or illustration.”

The Invention of the ‘Salvator Mundi’

Matthew Shaer | Vulture | 14th April 2019

Riveting. A seemingly factual account of how Salvator Mundi went from $1000 in 2005 to $450m in 2017. “About a year into the restoration process, Modestini … noticed a set of color transitions that she described to me as “perfect … I could no longer hide from the obvious… the artist who painted [Mona Lisa] was the same hand that had painted the Salvator Mundi”

Arpita Singh: Of stories untold

Ella Datta | The Hindu Business Line | 1st February 2019

As a young artist Singh used magazine pages for her art. That led to an affection for text, still visible in her work. Apart from a notable dalliance with abstraction, her work is figurative, displaying narrative scenes focused on female subjects. According to one market observer Singh, though 82 years old, may be “the next really big thing in Indian art.” A background piece is here.

How Chicago! Imagists 1960s & 70s

Tom Hastings | Studio International | 29th March 2019

The 1960’s US art scene was not all abstraction and Pop. Chicago had its own art moment – the Imagists. The group aesthetic was defined by quirky figuration and use of graphics. Sometimes the work looks like Pop – a love of bright colours and signage – though without the irony. Says the writer “I find myself falling for the work against my better judgment”.

‘A Painter Not Human’

Ingrid Rowland | The New York Review of Books | 9th May 2019

Coming from ‘provincial’ Sicily, Antonello struggled to get noticed. The modern view that he was the equal of Caravaggio or da Vinci is thus startling. Obsessed with depicting light and psychological detail, Antonello’s portraits are “utterly individual, unlike what any other artist was doing in his time or ours.” Of one portrait of Madonna reaching forward, “the greatest hand in Renaissance art”.

16th April 2019

Rubens had it all — fame, fortune, good looks. But you can’t hate him.

Philip Kennicott | The Washington Post | 11th April 2019

Rubens was successful, hugely so. Flaws that might make him more human are hard to spot. His work is dubbed “cinematic”, a la Spielberg. Is that so bad? Rubens is “almost always not just successful, but also almost comically successful, with a virtuoso energy that overwhelms suspicion.” Plausibly the greatest court painter of his age. More images are here.

Hirshhorn Extends Charline von Heyl’s Critically Acclaimed Exhibition

Phillip Barcio | Ideelart | 3rd April 2019

Von Heyl is very specific – her paintings do not carry narrative, in the classical sense. Each work is an object, “a new image that stands for itself as fact.” The months it takes to finish a work are spent “finding ways to lure the eye into the picture.” Von Heyl thinks that when she gets it right, her paintings have “liveliness … something that seduces more than it angers”.

The radical prints of Edvard Munch: ‘New ways to express moods and emotions’

Alastair Smart | Christie’s | 9th April 2019

Munch painted The Scream in 1893. Nothing happened. In 1895, he made a black and white lithograph of the same image – it established his reputation. His “utterly dynamic” printmaking was both popular and influential, especially among Germany’s Expressionists. “One really can’t talk of Munch’s greatness without considering the prints alongside the paintings.”

The Historical Expression of Chinese Art

John McDonald | johnmcdonald.net.au | 11th April 2019

Political approval is having a strong influence on contemporary Chinese art. Museums lean toward academic, historical shows to avoid official displeasure. Artists are similarly inclined. Among a current show of “old master” artists, contemporary means classical subjects, like landscapes, and historical scripts, approached in fresh ways. Great art, just wary great art.

Renaissance Man: Giovanni Battista Moroni

Jeanne-Marie Cilento | Design Art Magazine | 9th April 2019

Moroni was a big talent in a small town. The era’s famous names – Titian, Bronzino – competed for clients in glamourous Venice. Moroni enjoyed a quieter regional market where he could get away with painting what he saw, rather than glossy fictions. His naturalistic portraits, not especially celebrated at the time, now look like a “remarkable achievement.” A video (4 min) is here.

Talent and Tragedy

Kyle Warner | 1843 | 14th March 2019

Urban turmoil in Germany and Austria led artists to seek inspiration from within. Then, the horrors of WW1 created a new imperative – to objectively depict the crumbing Weimar republic. The self-portraits from these two periods are among the most memorable of 20th century art, from introspective Schiele to Beckmann’s dark realism. Unsettled faces, as far as the eye can see.

The Enduring Legacy of Joseph Duveen, America’s First Mega-Dealer

Wallace Ludell | Artsy | 9th April 2019

Duveen wasn’t the world’s greatest art dealer just because of expertise in art. He had abundant other talents including deal-making (including of the shady kind) and knowing who owned what. His dealings still underpin many major public collections – Washington’s National Gallery alone has 2464 of his pieces. Nearly a century later Duveen influence on art in the US is “nearly impossible to overstate”.

COMING UP

Thomas Demand may not be a name you are familiar with. He makes paper-based models and then takes photographs of them. These slightly strange creations have made him a major art world star. Next week Morgan Meis explains what all the fuss is about.

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