The Easel

3rd September 2019

Richard Serra Is Carrying the Weight of the World

A critic has suggested that Serra’s minimalist sculptures work primarily via anxiety – the worry of being crushed. If it’s not his “lighter” plate steel works causing the anxiety, it’s his immense forged steel blocks. Serra himself doesn’t seem to connect with this reaction – “deal with the work in and of itself and its inherent properties”, he suggests. True to his word, he notes “this is my heaviest show ever”.

Making the case for late Manet

Art history says there are several Manet’s. The painter of the prostitute Olympia had razor sharp social awareness, whereas the older Manet was “weak and flashy”. Recent scholarship, reflected in an “unusual” Chicago show, disputes this story. Manet was expressing in his late works the same social awareness he showed, decades earlier, with Olympia – an admiration of women with “self-possession”, modern women with agency.

Does Art Restoration Risk Erasing the Past?

Why are art conservators so, well, conservative? Conservation science can offer damaged works new life. Therein lies a profound dilemma. What voice should we give an artwork – one that is blemished but faithful to its moment in history or one that is more attractive but less authentic? Observes one curator (referring to Notre Dame cathedral) “You cannot keep everything … [its] just the course of history”.

Thabiso Sekgala Changed the Way the World Saw South Africa

Sekgala, working after apartheid had been abolished, was interested in its lingering impact on “identity”. Most acclaimed are his images of young people who, like himself, had been displaced by the homelands policy.  “Fences, roadsides and derelict buildings are recurrent motifs … [people] searching for a sense of belonging and protection in a torn landscape, establishing a sense of hope for a future not yet built.”

Roy DeCarava in New York: A Jazz Photographer in Subject and Technique

The African American Gordon Parks was famous for his documentary photography. Roy DeCarava was different, adopting an artistic approach. His spontaneous images of 1950’s Harlem are distinguished by a “painterly aesthetic” and a sympathetic eye for his subjects, “[casting] loose the norms of preparation, clarity, and stark black-and-white contrasts”. Images are here.

The State of Criticism

Art criticism is embattled. In the kerfuffle over the “timid” Whitney Biennial, art critics themselves faced criticism for being too white and insufficiently expert. Perhaps so. Critics also face other challenges, many having “insecure freelance jobs”. As traditional media declines, the unanswered issue continues to be “how to support the work of cultural writers in a sustainable way”.

27th August 2019

For the Love of Orange

As the title suggests, an ode to the colour. Initial interest – the history of how orange appeared in the English language – gradually becomes affection – “Van Gogh’s heady landscapes or Monet’s sunsets over shimmering water”. Finally, the admission of love – “a zip of joy in all life’s gray … a reminder of how it feels to begin … like a banner flapping in the breeze.”

The Artist at Home with Her Art: Ruth Asawa

The craft / fine art distinction is an idea that just won’t die. Asawa studied under Josef Albers, absorbing his Bauhaus view that the artist is an “exalted craftsman”. Her beguiling knitted wire sculptures exemplify that view – a humble material transformed by manual effort. Recent exhibitions evidence growing critical engagement and endorsement. A background video is here.

Point of No Return: East German art finally gets its moment

Events have not been kind to artists from the former East Germany. After reunification, key cultural posts went mostly to West Germans who assumed that artists from the East were producing socialist realism schlock. In fact, work of that period is diverse and strong. A curator advocates “synthesising the history of East German art into German art history [without] politicization and devaluation”. More images are here.

Interview with Mary Schmidt Campbell, author of An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden

It took Bearden ages to find his métier. Straight out of art school – and perhaps influenced by his mentor George Grosz – he painted figurative works. A post-war shift to abstraction was poorly received, insufficiently abstract for New York, insufficiently black for his own community.  A friend suggested photographing the collages that Bearden had made as a side project. They were an instant hit. America’s “foremost collagist” had arrived.

William Kentridge retrospective: Africa’s largest modern art museum goes beyond identity politics

Kentridge regards himself as “basically a drawer”, taking inspiration from Johannesburg life and its “unsentimental” landscape. Starting out, he thought his work might have a “safe provincialism”. In fact, he is a major voice in African art. Sadly, even a landmark exhibition such as this is not immune from South Africa’s sour identity politics. Images are here and an interview with the artist here.

Fra Angelico and the Rise of the Florentine Renaissance

Gothic art was elegant but static. Although trained in that tradition, Angelico and others (notably Giotto) gravitated to newer ideas – about colour, perspective and, above all, on what it is to be human. Angelico’s Annunciation altarpiece reflects this transition – “medieval flatness gives way to Renaissance depth … his marriage between medieval and modern remains one of the peaks of European painting.”

Exodus at Italy’s top museums as populist government sweeps away renaissance

It is widely acknowledged that Italy’s museums, with their innumerable cultural treasures, have been woefully managed. Reforms introduced in 2014, that gave museums more autonomy and the ability to recruit internationally, have been hugely successful. Incredibly, all this seems likely to be abandoned, due to internal government rivalries. As the author of the 2014 reforms notes “What damage to our image!”