The Easel

7th April 2020

Discovering magic in the mundane with Daidō Moriyama, Japan’s street photography godfather

Miss Rosen | Document | 28th January 2020

A major exhibition of Moriyama’s work has been cancelled. Images from that show are here and the linked piece is a recent assessment of his work. Moriyama declares that photography is “simply copying” but then admits “as a photographer, I make discoveries”. Often, those discoveries are the beauty to be found in gritty urban life. Cumulatively, his prolific output amounts to a “eulogy to the intense state of modern life.”

Bubonic plague in Europe changed art history. Why coronavirus could do the same

Christopher Knight | LA Times | 29th March 2020

While Jerry Saltz (below) anguishes about galleries and artists, Knight wonders how the pandemic will impact art. Giotto blazed a path away from stilted Byzantine iconography. With the Black Death in 1347, his revolution stopped. Art retreated to the familiar. Survivors of the pestilence carried feelings of guilt and saw religion differently. Covid 19 may be a similar catalyst: “Fear, guilt and spiritual upheaval await.”

Andy Warhol, Tate Modern

Waldemar Januszczuk | Waldemar.tv | 6th April 2020

Yet another Warhol show! A few critics are enthused but this writer’s verdict, a “jerky driftospective”, is hardly surprising. The diversity of Warhol’s output – photography, printmaking, painting, film – poses a curatorial challenge. Still, its hard not to agree that we need a “a deep and proper assessment of Warhol’s achievements, mounted with wisdom. A just released virtual tour of the exhibition (6 min) is here.

Above It All

John Dorfman | Art and Antiques | 15th February 2020

Italian Futurists worshiped speed, and the machines that produced it. They dreamed of an Italy driven by technology, and it showed in their art. These ideas were influential in Europe and at home won a key admirer – Mussolini. With their imagery of “masculine military power”, were they complicit in the “aestheticization of war”? Only some, but enough to hinder recognition of Italy’s most influential art movement.

Artemisia Gentileschi: the artist who grabbed life by the throat

Claudia Pritchard | iNews | 25th March 2020

Gentileschi’s profile has risen abruptly as major institutions redress their neglect of female artists and many find that her life story resonates with #metoo. Stylistically influenced by both her father and Caravaggio, the celebrated psychological intensity of Gentileschi’s works is uniquely hers. They “pulsate with honesty, meticulous observation and a sense of what it is to be a woman” – the Baroque’s first proto feminist.

Hospital paintings and the art of healing

Michael Prodger | New Statesman | 1st April 2020

Doctors focus on the body while art prioritises the soul. Pre-Renaissance art tried to provide “edification of the sick”, featuring religious themes like mortality, forgiveness, redemption. By the eighteenth century, art was empathetic because illness was seen as part of the human condition. Art in today’s hospitals is determinedly cheerful – optimism is good for our health.

The Last Days of the Art World … and Perhaps the First Days of a New One

Jerry Saltz | Vulture | 2nd April 2020

This “true believer” has bleak expectations about the coming art world. “Most galleries don’t have cash reserves to go through a lockdown of six months.” Some art schools will close and, with them, teaching jobs for artists. Museums without large endowments will struggle, art fairs will disappear, and writing about art will shrink further. “How to survive? Passion. Obsession. Desire.”

31st March 2020

Maintenance work

Andrew Russeth | Artforum | 24th March 2020

How will the art world be changed by this pandemic? One writer expects a legacy of less travel, thus undermining the art world’s propensity of assigning “relevance through motion”. Images of empty streets are newly resonant. We will recognise new heroes – janitors, deliverers, maintenance workers. “[M]aintenance is … the hidden force that makes so much possible. Now is a time for Maintenance Art.”

Inigo Philbrick, the Art World’s mini-Madoff, and Me

Kenny Schachter | Vulture | 16th March 2020

A rollicking tale for your lockdown. Schachter is an art world insider and an insightful writer. He took a precocious young dealer under his wing. Various high jinx followed. “Prices sometimes can be manipulated by the very well connected but nothing goes up forever. Rather than rein in his bets, Philbrick seemed to grow ever more audacious. Though criminal charges have yet to be filed, he’s worth more out of jail to some than behind bars.”

Michael Craig-Martin in conversation at Art Geneve

Samuel Gross | Gagosian Quarterly | 3rd March 2020

Craig-Martin, the renowned conceptual artist, thinks we under-rate everyday objects. “We express ourselves through the objects that we make”. He wants his images to have the same quality as the objects – the perfection of something mass produced. And his intense colours? “Color has to compensate for everything that’s missing in the drawing … physicality.”

A day to see Titian’s six masterpieces of classical storytelling at the National Gallery

Francesca Carington | tatler | 18th March 2020

A set of seven paintings commissioned from Titian by Philip II of Spain have been reunited for the first time in centuries. A decade in the making, they are a Renaissance masterpiece. Titian’s taste for erotic fleshy nudes is on display but so too is his ability to convey emotion and psychological depth. Collectively they are a “supremely assured” narration of classical themes – power, passion, death – and “can’t be beaten.” All images are here.

Has LACMA lost its way?

Matt Stromberg and J. Patrice Marandel | Apollo | 30th March 2020

Controversy over the new building of the Los Angeles County museum is spectacular. Critics are apoplectic about cost and diminished options for displaying the permanent collection. A major donor has jumped ship. Apart from the merits of the building, bigger issues are at play. Should museums try to be encyclopedic? Should donors’ wishes be prioritised? Says an aggrieved donor “Once that wrecking ball starts to hit the buildings, there’s no turning back”.

1st Stellenbosch Triennale, “Tomorrow there will be more of us”

Sean O’Toole | Art Agenda | 19th March 2020

South Africa’s success with big art events has been patchy. So it takes courage to launch a non-commercial trienniale, especially in the Afrikaner town of Stellenbosch, the “former intellectual redoubt for apartheid”. The modest event attracted international attention before its virus-related closure.  In a country where art is rarely taught in schools, the event “asserts an expanded notion of belonging.”

The radical transformation of Madame D’Ora

Jackson Arn | Forward | 10th March 2020

In fin-de-siècle Vienna, Kallmus made her first career in charming but conventional fashion photography and society portraiture. After WW2, her focus shifted radically to the “unperfumed world” of refugees and slaughterhouses. A survey show is fascinating not because of any one image but because of this “strangely inevitable swerve, … penance [to] make up for the slick lies that preceded them.” A video (4 min) is here.

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