The Easel

13th February 2024

Frank Auerbach, The Charcoal Heads: there’s a raw, vital power behind these haunted faces

Alastair Sooke | The Telegraph | 8th February 2024

Auerbach famously paints by repeatedly scraping off each day’s efforts and starting again. Likewise, his postwar charcoal drawings were drawn and erased so often that he sometimes wore through the paper. The images are intense – “unsmiling, stoic troglodytes, with downcast eyes”. Says one writer “We carry the marks of our experience in the flesh, and that’s what’s on these sheets of ripped paper: the battered, bruised and broken signs that somehow, despite it all, we’re still here.”

Barbara Kruger Is Still Flipping the Bird

Simon Coates | Observer | 8th February 2024

Kruger’s work was once described as a “long exercise in preaching to the choir”. Whether or not that was true, no-one is saying it about this show. Her aphorisms are as sharp as ever and the show “pummels” viewers with words and images. Says one writer, “if you could package social media into a room, this would be it”. This is twentieth century art, “over-explaining and oversharing [reflecting the] desperate urge to be understood in a clamorous, look-at-me-please world.” A backgrounder is here.

Entangled Pasts 1978-Now, Royal Academy, review: An extraordinary achievement

Hettie Judah | iNews | 3rd February 2024

London’s Royal Academy carefully admits in a show that slavery is a part of its history. Unsurprisingly, not everyone is pleased. One critic calls it an “act of public self-flagellation … [showing] old paintings the RA is so clearly ashamed of”. The writer differs. The show in parts is “unexpectedly magnificent” and the “historic picture that emerges melds horror and hope. It lets the art have its own voice: this is very strong stuff” An excellent essay on power and clothing is here.

6th February 2024

CUTE is a delight for the senses but has a darker complexity

Pamela Buxton | The RIBA Journal | 22nd January 2024

Sex sells, and so too does cute – just think of the multitude of soft toys with imploring eyes. Stimulated by the Japanese cute/lovable aesthetic, cuteness has become a western cultural force. A big part of its appeal is that, not being easy to define, it accommodates almost unlimited interpretations. Says a curator, it is a “mechanism for [young] people to find themselves. I think cuteness will only get stronger and stronger.” One down-to-earth writer quips, “this [show] is catnip for TikTok”.

Older links
Newer links