Technology is a trendy subject. However, not for the first time, a prominent show on the topic fails to excite. While individual works are “interesting”, the show is “incoherent”. Too many works “divorce us from the reality of how intertwined our physical and virtual worlds have become. [Why warn about a] dark and dangerous other world?… the thing is, we are already in that other world”.
The Bauhaus was probably the single most influential modernist art school of the 20th century. To mark the centenary of its founding, Morgan Meis is writing an essay – in three parts – on its history and impact.
“Bauhaus’ founding manifesto [by Walter Gropius] is a document wild with utopian ideals. It is not a utopianism wishing to abolish the past in the name of a glorious future filled with glass and concrete. There is nothing in it that comes anywhere close to the idea that form should follow function, that ornament is an enemy, or that formal simplicity is a goal in and of itself. The biggest question … is whether the movement lost – or found – its way through the course of the 20th century.”
The art world, it seems, is getting woke. There has always been a market for the work of African American artists. It’s just that the leading museums are now involved, with changed curatorial appointments and museum acquisitions. Conspicuously, auction room results have also upshifted. Says one curator “there has been a whole parallel universe … that people had not tapped into”
Ringgold’s work is political, intense. It thus surprises how often it is called colourful – even “pretty”. She started with painting and posters but moved to “populist” quilts, a form women have long used for story telling. The art world can be sniffy about textiles but they suited Ringgold, their textures and colours expressing her “exuberance and optimism” in the face of angry subject matter.
Alan Schaefer had a secret – April Dawn Alison, an after-hours female persona. Following his death, decades of Polaroid images were found, “an extraordinary long-term exploration of a private self”. In our social media age, a project “intended only for private consumption and personal pleasure feels so anachronistic and so genuine as to become almost sacred.” More images are here.