The Easel

28th May 2019

Luchita Hurtado: I Live I Die I Will Be Reborn @ the Serpentine Sackler Gallery

Hurtado is 98, an active artist, and having her first show at a public museum. Remarkable. Her art has traversed abstraction, surrealism and stylized figuration, frequently portraying her own body.  And, for good measure, a detour through text paintings. “Fabulous … utterly compelling and persuasive” says the reviewer. A conversation between artist and curator is here.

Adrian Ghenie at Venice’s Palazzo Cini declares painting as a vital force

Since Ghenie appeared at the 2015 Venice Biennale, his prices have gone wild. This writer goes all in – “the world’s most exciting painter under the age of 50”. Others are less impressed – “incoherent compositions … assembled gimmicks that don’t add up.”  Aware of the hype, the artist declares “there has to be energy and control”, sounding a bit like a personal trainer at the gym.

The Contrarian Modernism of Fairfield Porter

With his family wealth, Porter could afford to be contrary. New York was agog with boisterous abstraction but, having seen a Bonnard show in Chicago, Porter chose figuration. Landscapes and interiors best showcased his colourist abilities. One interior, a “low key visual symphony” seems to celebrate paint itself; maybe he was “a covert abstractionist after all”.