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”.

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”.

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.

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.

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