The Easel

10th March 2020

David Jenkins discovers the new Aubrey Beardsley exhibition at Tate Britain

David Jenkins | tatler | 6th March 2020

Expecting a short life, Beardsley worked feverishly. He took up art at 18, his sensual black and white drawings instantly brilliant. Book illustrations cemented his reputation, their erotic content showing “an attitude to lust and sex that even Egon Schiele is hard pressed to match.” Then death, at 25. There is no lasting Beardsley movement, just his images of “the overheated, decadent days … that were London’s febrile 1890s”

Against understanding

Sebastian Moll | Süddeutsche Zeitung | 4th March 2020

Richter is a skeptic. Perhaps this reflects his background – growing up with East Germany’s Socialist Realist aesthetic; and as a German, processing the memory of WWII. Some paintings begin with a photographic image which is then worked until virtually gone. Richter is, says one critic, the “greatest of living painters”. This writer offers a different perspective: “a master of indissoluble ambivalence”. (via Google Translate)

Alona Pardo on destabilising the myths surrounding masculinity

Diane Smyth | British Journal of Photography | 17th February 2020

This photography exhibition has produced an absolute torrent of commentary. Masculinity is cultural and learned from stereotypes – musclemen, athletes, soldiers, fathers. “Generalisations”, protest some reviewers. True, but that doesn’t deny that stereotypes exist or that they are influential. This writer concludes that we need an “emancipation of masculinity” The take of another critic is that men share an overlooked quality – vulnerability.

How ‘The Gates’ Triumphed Over New York’s NIMBYs

Kriston Capps | Citylab | 2nd March 2020

An appreciation of the 2005 The Gates project of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Bureaucrats initially declared it “the wrong project, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.” Fourteen years later it was realised. “The gates were … a live civic spectacle, proof that a vision could serve as a beacon to the public commons. Witnessing the gates as a visitor felt peaceful — even underwhelming. It was supposed to be.”

Piranesi Drawings: Visions of Antiquity

Sarah Vowles | theidlewoman | 19th February 2020

Unable to succeed as an architect, Piranesi chose instead to make prints of ancient Roman buildings. Tourists on the Grand Tour loved them, making him the 18th century’s “greatest printmaker”. Architecturally sensible images gradually became towering edifices that Piranesi imagined for ancient Rome. Perhaps their fantasy element explains their lingering influence, like inspiring sets on the Hollywood film Blade Runner.

What You Need to Know from the Art Market 2020 Report

Benjamin Sutton | Artsy | 5th March 2020

A key market report says that global art sales declined 6% in 2019, following a flat 2018. Auction sales fell a lot (fewer sales of the most expensive artworks) while online sales fell slightly. Sales by galleries and dealers nudged up, the biggest of them growing by a lot. Art fairs remain important. Women artists are (slowly) getting more exposure. A description of these data as “a strong plateau” sounds just a touch optimistic.

Peter the Great: Collector, Scholar, Artist. Moscow Kremlin Museums

Kamila Kociałkowska | Burlington Magazine | 5th March 2020

A story off the beaten track.  Apparently, the modern concept of a museum owes something to the reformist Czar, Peter the Great. Russia had accumulated treasure from war, diplomacy and trade deals. Appreciating that “power was a performance”, Peter put these treasures on public display. Pleased with the results he engaged in what would now be called curatorship. Then, as now, art has the potential to “brand national identity”. Images are here.

3rd March 2020

David Hockney: Drawing from Life review – stripping subjects down to their gym socks

Jonathon Jones | The Guardian | 26th February 2020

A few critics’ quibbles (too many Hockney shows, “the polished sweetness of Ingres”) don’t reflect the majority view. “Postwar art’s greatest draughtsman” says one. This writer agrees. “Hockney is a graphic master … the most dazzling display of his art I have ever seen. The intensity of Hockney’s self-inspection, fag in mouth, bears comparison with Rembrandt.”

Lynda Benglis Pours One Out

Hermoine Hoby | Frieze | 26th February 2020

A notorious 1974 nude portrait in Artforum announced Benglis as a provocateur. Over a lengthy career, she has stayed faithful to type. Early poured-latex sculptures shook up sculpture. Her video art was disruptive. She used shamelessly bright colours at a time of “revered monochrome”. So, provocateur – why not? Artists get recognition “because they’re not just making objects to be seen, they’re making their beliefs as they feel them”.

The cold, imperious beauty of Donald Judd

Peter Schjeldahl | The New Yorker | 2nd March 2020

Realising that his paintings were a bit so-so, Judd switched to 3-D “objects” (boxes to you and I). Even though abstract expressionism was dominant, this work made a big splash. This New York retrospective acknowledges that Judd’s minimal aesthetic is now so influential it is “engulfing”. Still, his objects are visually austere. “I would tell you my emotional responses to the gorgeous [Judd] works … if I had any”.

The Layers of History Behind Raphael’s Tapestries at the Sistine Chapel

Anthony Majanlahti | Hyperallergic | 25th February 2020

Michelangelo was irked by Raphael. Compared to the former, Raphael was just an upstart. Yet somehow Raphael won a papal commission for a set of tapestries. Those tapestries were recently reunited in the Sistine Chapel, for just one week. “[Their] overall effect is sumptuous, even awe-inspiring, and their level of detail is astonishing. [They reveal] the Sistine Chapel not just as a complete work of art, but as a complete cultural artifact”.

World-class photography, born under the roof of apartheid

Sean O’Toole | Maverick Life | 3rd February 2020

Mofokeng was “man of our messy present”. Firstly a street photographer, then press photographer, his reputation blossomed as a member of a group that documented South Africa’s political life. He avoided violence, instead showing ordinary township life with “fluidity and poetry”. There is, says the writer “a persuasive case for Mofokeng’s place in the pantheon of greats. Not just in South Africa, but globally.”

‘Vida Americana’ Is the Most Relevant Show of the 21st Century

Jerry Saltz | Vulture | 24th March 2020

After the Mexican Revolution, leading artists such as Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco left for the US. There they greatly influenced artists like Jackson Pollock and Phillip Guston who were “looking for a way around Picasso”. A “stupendous” show acknowledges their contribution. “Siqueiros [works] … are among the most physically original and innovative paintings of the 20th century.” A video (6 min) is here.

Death of a wannabe “mega” gallery—was the closure of Blain Southern an outlier or the canary in the mine?

Georgina Adam | The Art Newspaper | 26th February 2020

Regarded by some as “one of London’s best”, Blain Southern gallery has closed, midway through its expansion into New York. Further evidence that smaller galleries cannot survive? Not necessarily – Blain Southern was hardly small. Any lessons are likely prosaic. First, look after your big-name artists. Secondly, if you have an ambitious expansion in mind, have deep pockets.

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