The Easel

31st July 2018

The Ascetic Beauty of Brancusi

It’s odd to say Brancusi “exploded” onto the art scene in 1913. He could barely sell a work and, for decades, depended on a sole American patron. Such market indifference reflects “the extent to which Brancusi was operating wholly outside the temper of his time, including [radical] Paris.” Given his stature now, this is surely one of the more remarkable transformations in all of art history.

24th July 2018

Punch and injury

Jordan Wolfson wants us to feel more. His latest work ventures into “emotional mechanics” – a two metre puppet connected by chains to a moving gantry. “It is difficult not to feel something, and just as difficult to think that such feeling is pointless. Isn’t this kind of emotional response and lingering fascination one of the things we desire most from art?”  A video (5 min) is here.