The Easel

22nd September 2015

Ai Weiwei at the Royal Academy: a triumphant display of poetic objects with political intent

Alex Hawkins | Its Nice That | 16th September 2015

This might just be the most anticipated art exhibition in London this year. Enthusiastic reviews abound though a few struggle with Ai’s merging of art and activism. This artist’s courage and force of personality are beyond doubt as is the ability of his work to generate a sizable political punch. Ai may much prefer that punch were being delivered at home rather than abroad. A video interview (3 min) with the artist is here.

Frank Gehry’s Winning Egotism

Jonathon Grifin | Intelligent Life | 15th September 2015

By any measure Frank Gehry has been a force for innovation in architecture and has produced some iconic buildings. Detractors claim that his designs are showy – great exteriors but neglectful of internal uses. A retrospective in Los Angeles errs toward flattery and the linked essay follows its cue that Gehry be viewed as an artist. An equally good but more neutral review is here. An excellent video (7 min) is here.

Kongo: Power and Majesty review – African treasures inspire awe at the Met

Jason Farago | The Guardian | 19th September 2015

The traditional view that Europe brought civilization to the Dark Continent gets hammered in a landmark exhibition of African sculpture at New York’s Metropolitan. “It is a scholarly blockbuster” and some large scale sculptures are “a high point in the history of art”.  Overall, the show “exposes our own museums’ complicity in the scramble for Africa, and the deportation of not only African people but African things.“

Simon Schama’s eye for a story

Andrew Marr | Prospect | 17th September 2015

Can the story of a nation be told through its celebrated portraits? Historian Simon Schama aims to do this in a book and matching exhibition at London’s National Portrait Gallery. Overall, there is approval of the eclectic narrative that emerges. “[I]t’s the pathetic default mode of the modern book review to attack a book for all the things it isn’t, rather than look closely at what it is. And this [book] is both excellent and highly unusual.”

A master of the eloquent insult: Brian Sewell was one of a kind

Mark Hudson | The Telegraph | 19th September 2015

The tributes being written for British art critic Brian Sewell are, for the most part, conflicted. In trying to see the world through the eyes of the common man, he came across as a populist – famous for rudeness, his dismissal of female artists and dislike of most modern art and many art critics. However, he had deep expertise in art which he applied with transparent honesty. Mostly, he got people talking about art.

We Must Not Be Isolated

Ali Smith | Frieze Masters | 19th September 2015

Ali Smith displays her celebrated writing talents in a personal take on the Tate’s recent Sonia Delaunay show. A contemporary poet described Delaunay’s dresses “as if they made women into works of art. [At] the dance hall … she, Robert and their friends would strut their stuff … usually dressed in Sonia’s early simultaneous clothes, bright swirls of patched colour-amalgam which gave them the visible status of glorious jesters”.

17th September 2015

Review: Picasso, Completely Himself in 3 Dimensions

Roberta Smith | New York Times | 10th September 2015

Wow! Roberta Smith is rarely so effusive – “..very few [exhibitions] are tantamount to works of art in their own right… [MoMA’s] staggering “Picasso Sculpture” is … a once-in-a-lifetime event.” Surveying these rarely assembled works she comments: “Picasso was … a magician, a magpie genius, a comedic entertainer and a tinkerer with superb reflexes”. Was he better as a sculptor or as a painter? “That’s a tough call”.

An early look in the Broad museum reveals a show that doesn’t quite gel

Christopher Knight | LA Times | 13th September 2015

Donor-created museums – like the Courtauld, the Frick and the Getty – have a new club member, the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. Such grand generosity – building, collection, and an endowment – doesn’t quite overcome reservations about the art. The above review is polite but specific: “[A Jeff Koons] sculpture… underscores the narrowness of the collection. It’s mainly rich in blue-chip art, defined by market value…”

5 pieces in the Broad collection that highlight Pop art history and its almost immediate impact

Christopher Knight | LA Times | 9th September 2015

In a companion piece to his overall review of the new Broad museum, Christopher Knight picks five Pop art masterpieces from its collection. They reflect the collection’s area of greatest depth – the Broads reportedly sold a van Gogh to expand their Pop purchases.

How To Fall In Love With Letters, According To A Typography Icon

Priscilla Frank | Huffington Post | 11th September 2015

Alan Petholick glimpsed his future career as a junior in an ad agency “I kept getting fired from these agencies because I spent too much time worrying about what the type looked like instead of selling the soap.” He became a pioneer of “expressive typography”– designing letterforms so that “the reader can really feel what the word means, not just read it”.

Old Guys Painting: David Salle on the Mature Painter’s Letting Go

David Salle | ARTnews | 10th September 2015

Artists are sometimes especially perceptive critics of the work of other artists. David Salle, a prominent American painter, reviews three shows by artists in their late 70’s or 80’s to illustrate how artists change with age. “Painting is one of the few things in life for which youth holds no advantage. …[A] painter’s late work is characterized by letting go—the older painter needs do less.”

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