Some think that the English are “mingy” in the recognition they accord their own artists. Hilton Als, the eminent American critic is not so restrained. “Contemporary British art [including “visionaries” such as Paul] has had a global impact. She builds up on a series of canvases a great originality, an emotional breadth, a vocabulary of loss, of loss even before it happens.”
Suh has lived in lots of houses. Because of this transient existence “home” is an important concept to him and drives his art. He makes “fabric sculptures”, delicate life-sized recreations of past dwellings, complete with embroidered household objects. These works “convey both the weight of architecture and the weightlessness of memory.” Images and a video (2 min) are here.
Feted in London this show has moved to Washington. Cezanne “faltered” in his portraits because of the difficulty of showing what he wanted to show – a person not a personality, “an absoluteness not just of seeing, but of being”. This idea is a building block of modernism and not easy. “Cézanne’s fate has been to be revered more than enjoyed.”
The idea of art expressing the unconscious has a long history. Paul Brown has given the idea a modern twist – writing computer programs that autonomously generate art. These works are not Brown’s self-expression but rather art that “makes itself” and is testimony to the “beauty of spontaneous and organic structures”. Images showing the development of these ideas are here.
Should some ancient stone tools be viewed as sculpture? A “provocative” US show promotes this hypothesis, displaying hand axes too big for practical use and other tools so symmetrical as to compromise usability. Early examples of Duchamp’s concept of the readymade, perhaps? A concession of sorts comes from one critic – “some of the oldest aesthetic objects on earth”.
An art world heavy hitter draws attention to the nearly-forgotten Colescott. Colescott anticipated important social issues, especially identity stereotypes. His preferred approach was not earnestness but humour. An obituary, in 2009, noted his “giddily joyful, destabilized compositions … satirized and offended without regard to race, creed, gender.” More images are here.