The Easel

3rd October 2017

GALLERY ESSAY: Is The Painting Counting?

Morgan Meis | Royal Academy of Arts | 23rd September 2017

When Jasper Johns was starting out abstract expressionism reigned supreme, asking ‘big’ questions like ‘what does painting do’. Johns had different interests, painting mundane objects like flags. Such paintings, argues Morgan Meis, are elusive. “.. if I paint the number ‘2’ on a canvas, have I brought that number into existence? Is the painting now a ‘2’? Or is it a painting of a ‘2’?

Art does not uncover what is hidden, or resolve itself into clear, declarative statements – this means this, that means that. Rather, in art, meaning is a glimpse of reality, like something seen through a periscope. Periscope (Hart Crane), is not a puzzle to be solved. It is, in the end, a simple painting composed of simple images. Yet those images are resonant with metaphors of the sea, of depths, of longing, loss, secrets and the mystery of meaning.”

A major retrospective of the American artist Jasper Johns, “Something Resembling Truth” has just opened at the Royal Academy of Arts. This essay is reproduced with the permission of the Royal Academy and Morgan Meis.

The new Chapman brothers show is delightful and disturbing – and you need to see it

Tim Smith-Laing | Apollo | 2nd October 2017

Controversy is a key part of Dinos and Jake Chapman’s oeuvre – as is their Goya fixation. Their latest show, which this writer thinks puts them “at the top of their game”, features numerous Goya prints to which they have added colour or glitter – “possibly the prettiest thing the Chapmans have ever produced”. And then there are bronze casts of … suicide-bomb vests. More controversy, one presumes.

26th September 2017

Basquiat: Boom for Real, Barbican review – the myth explored

Sarah Kent | the arts desk | 22nd September 2017

There is some skepticism about Basquiat. Snobbery, racism, envy, the wildness of his art – all perhaps play a role. In addition sky-high prices have meant that very little of his work is viewable in public collections. So what is the verdict on Basquiat’s first London retrospective? High energy art, one critic comments, “wholly fresh … jazzy and garrulous, and surprisingly visually powerful”. An interview with the curator is here.

Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell, at the National Gallery, London; Degas: A Passion for Perfection at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Rachel Campbell-Johnston | The Times | 9th September 2017

Degas closely aligned with the Impressionist group but in many ways was different. Painting landscapes outdoors was not for him. He preferred half-lit interiors … and nudes. Behind a difficult personality was a relentless innovator. Degas’ approach to the nude was “audacious … a collision with the whole history of aesthetics. He was not concerned with the final, or finished, or even the successful”. More images are here.

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