The Easel

23rd July 2019

Leon Kossoff: Figurative and landscape painter who chronicled London life

Charles Darwent | The Independent | 13th July 2019

Kossoff enjoyed a rare compliment from London’s National Gallery – after-hours access. A central figure in British art, his reputation rested on Expressionist paintings of London’s people, streets and buildings. A slow worker, the final canvasses were thick with heavily worked paint “as if made of coloured, solidified engine grease as put into a grease gun.” Says one writer “a playful and serious genius”.

Drill, Baby, Drill: Hito Steyerl Stares Down Hidden Histories at New York’s Park Avenue Armory

Alex Greenberger | ARTnews | 21st June 2019

Steyerl is a visual artist with an agenda. Her commentary on technology, media and contemporary culture – in film, video and writing – is widely acclaimed. While not every one of her works is equally successful, their cumulative eloquence is undeniable – images on social media are an all-pervasive influence. As one critic notes “You can’t log off when the internet and the world are one”.

The 25 Works of Art That Define the Contemporary Age

Thessaly La Force | The New York Times | 15th July 2019

The New York Times tries for the impossible – a shortlist of contemporary artworks that define our age. A group of artists and curators produces a list. Few auction room stars, few paintings, little consensus. Instead, what emerges is a profile of art world preoccupations with identity and today’s fractured political discourse. Inclusive, idiosyncratic, inconclusive, interesting.

In a Morris Minor key – Michael Collins presents the lost world of family slides

Fatema Ahmed | Apollo | 18th July 2019

An interesting perspective. Amateur cameras in the 1950’s and 60’s were clunky, making for slow photography. Careful, matter-of-fact family snaps, at their best, are aesthetically akin to the celebrated photography of Bernd and Hilla Becher. “They have an eloquence that goes to the core of what photography really is … each of these family slides is a biography written in the vernacular”. More images are here.

Can we decolonise the British Museum?

Ellen Pierson-Haggar | New Statesman | 20th July 2019

In late 2017 the French President promised to repatriate art objects stolen from French colonies. The announcement resonated in Britain because of its extensive holdings of colonial-era artifacts. It seems the British Museum remains untroubled. “We believe the strength of the collection is its breadth and depth … the integrity of the collection should be maintained.”

Finland’s Munch’: the unnerving art of Helene Schjerfbeck

Kate Kellaway | Our Daily Read | 6th July 2019

Schjerfbeck does not provide a tidy narrative. She was fashion conscious but many of her portraits show a preference for “an averted gaze”. She adored Paris but ultimately chose provincial Finland – where her art became modernist. One critic’s view that her work is “a cold shower of second-rate art” is an outlier compared to this writer’s summation – “wan, authoritative and unnerving”.

Why so serious? The reason we rarely see smiles in art history

Julia Wolkoff | CNN Style | 10th July 2019

The closed mouth half smile – the smirk – appears in portraiture but rarely a full smile. Why? Until being rehabilitated by photography, a toothy smile was thought unfashionable, a gesture of the lower classes. Perhaps a better explanation, though, is that a smirk is easily interpreted – coyness for example. In contrast, a smile is more ambiguous – “unnervingly unreadable … is it a revealing expression or one of concealment?”

16th July 2019

Olafur Eliasson’s Tate Modern retrospective shows reality in “higher granularity”

Sebastian Jordahn | Dezeen | 12th July 2019

An Eliasson retrospective must be a great temptation for Tate Modern. His 2003 “weather” installation had 2m visitors. This show feels a bit like a collection of greatest hits and is, according to one critic, “disjointed”. Still, Eliasson’s eloquent works are acclaimed as experiments in perception and statements of concern about environmental loss. The video in the article is worth a look.

Stanley Whitney’s Machine for Painting

Joe Fyfe | Hyperallergic | 13th July 2019

Whitney’s paintings have been called ‘portals into colour’. His first museum show in 2015 brought greater attention to his signature grids – saturated colour fields separated by horizontal bands. Whitney admits a debt to other artists – notably Velazquez – but the end results are completely his: “stacks of rectangles seemingly supported by horizontal, shelf-like stripes … compositions [that] are like a liquid Rubik’s cube.”

The Revival of Pattern, Symbolism, and Craft

Alice Rawsthorn | Maharam | 30th June 2019

Pattern is becoming big, declares this eminent design critic. Not coincidentally, craftsmanship and the artisanal are also enjoying new appreciation. Why so? Industrial production techniques favoured standardised designs while newer digital technology now allows product diversity at a reasonable cost. Besides, with all the time we spend online, “intimacy and spontaneity feel more attractive to us than globalized blandness”.

Photographers creating work through the queer gaze

Amelia Abraham | Dazed | 3rd July 2019

Western art is full of heterosexual role models. One can hardly object when LGBTQ folks seek to balance things up. One critic complains about the curation of this show, calling it a “shambles”.  Surely, though, the main point is the virtue of an inclusive visual culture. One artist wants to remove perceptions that the LGBTQ community is exotic: “[My art] encourages people to see those ‘Others’ as equals.”

Groundbreaking Artificial Intelligence art exhibition to open at Somerset House

Annie Carpenter | Medium | 12th July 2019

Views of artificial intelligence in art vary from “it’s a miracle” to “it’s rubbish”. Eaton, a classically trained animator, uses AI as a humble ‘assistant’ to complete his drawings. The result is notably “coherent” work. Perhaps AI is merely a technological yeoman? Not so fast. Says Eaton “The result [of the collaboration] is often a wondrous, unexpected, interplay of visual ideas, both mine and the machine’s.”

Howardena Pindell with Toby Kamps

Toby Kamps | The Brooklyn Rail | 3rd July 2019

An accomplished career as curator and artist did not bring Pindell the accolades one might expect. Recent high-profile exhibitions have changed this and she is currently “riding a triumphant wave”. This interview is interesting throughout including, sadly descriptions of “microaggressions” against women artists and, especially, against women artists of colour.

What Happens When an Artwork Is Damaged beyond Repair

Elena Goukassian | Artsy | 11th July 2019

Accidents happen. When an artwork is ruined, insurance is paid and the insurance company becomes the owner.  It’s curious then that, although deemed worthless, these works are still treated with respect. The cultural attitudes that gave rise to their value cannot easily be removed. “You remove something from having monetary value and, at every turn, people are trying to bring it back “.

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