The American artist Ed Ruscha memorably said that good art makes us go “Huh? Wow”, while bad art makes us say “Wow, Huh?” Uncertainty, in other words, is an inherent part of looking at art. There is no definitive truth about an artwork, because “truth” varies from individual to individual. Great art “rewards different interpretations as the world changes around it”.
Gates has been called “the poster boy for socially engaged art.” Many reviews of his solo show thus hesitate about where to look – his art works or his dazzling social activism. His paintings, made with humble building materials, seem craft-like. Comments Gates, “who divides the highbrow from the commonplace”? An exhibition that “celebrates the handmade, the tactile, and the community is a welcome breath of fresh air.” A video on Gates’ art is here.
The complexity of Johnson’s collages and mosaics has led some to accuse him of being “opaque”. His new show has a pandemic vibe with its “smeary, staring faces”, painted in “anxious red”. Are these the faces of people looking for an escape? Or are they our screen-obsessed selves “as we binge-watch our way through a global pandemic? … if there is any greater, deeper meaning in the work, I find myself too distracted by all the superficial, extraneous detail to see it.”
Just for pleasure. Magnum boasts a greedy share of the world’s leading photographers, obvious in this selection from its archives. Chosen to illustrate the theme of people reading, these images beguile. Is it voyeurism, or just our curiosity about those who have the opportunity “to exist, for a while, elsewhere”?
What came first, sculpture or language? Gormley, a sculptor, suggests sculpture, because “touch and recognition” are central to human nature. Gormley then mounts a bigger claim – sculpture, “a form of physical thinking … is the pre-eminent art. Sculpture asks the world to stand aside and give it a place, whereas painting … [is] weak; it needs a stretcher, a wall, a building — it needs shelter.” A video is here.
“Epic” levels of derision are being heaped on a new London statue of the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft. “The visual charisma of a doorknob” is a polite example. One critic questions why, if the idea was to create an “everywoman” image, the figure has “shredded abs”. At least part of the problem is that there is no agreement about what we want public art to do. Says a beleaguered organiser “The shit we’ve had is off the scale.”
Sze’s work is interesting and important, it’s just difficult to put into words. A Paris show comprises two big installations, each a whirl of found objects, bits of paper, projected images. What is the implied scale – are we looking at an explosion, an implosion or “drilling into the sub-atomic?” That uncertainty, it seems, is what Sze wants, a borderland between “interior and exterior worlds.” As she observes “When we dream, there is no real sense of scale”.
Yang makes genre-defying installations – sculptures on wheels, soundscapes, arrays of hanging venetian blinds. Some combine technology and craft elements. What’s the big unifying idea? Yang seems unlikely to provide one, thinking art is ““something to experience, not necessarily to understand”. Pondering Yang’s admiration for “loyal, supportive” domestic appliances, one writer speculates her art “represents a point of passage between human and non-human.”
In 1970 Caland “bolted”, leaving her young family and Beirut to pursue art in Paris. The art she produced was as uninhibited as her life choices. She ranged across painting, sculpture and textiles, developing a voluptuous, “decidedly feminist” style. Discovered almost by accident in a Paris group show, she had her first solo museum exhibition in 2019, the year of her death.
Young artists sometimes get “cradle snatched” by critics and the market. Casteel, 31, is a case in point. In the six years since her graduation, she can boast multiple solo shows, “enviable” sales and attention from critics. Is this too much acclaim for a young artist? Some think her work, mostly portraits, is conservative. The reviewer wonders whether Casteel is prescient or just trendy but doesn’t show his hand. “Let’s see where [she] takes us”.
Advanced digital photography has been used to reproduce the Sistine Chapel’s glorious art in a book at 1:1 scale. Project details are impressive – five years’ work, 270,000 images, almost perfect colour fidelity, three large format volumes, each weighing 25lbs. Says the publisher “The idea is that the Sistine Chapel is one of the masterworks of western art [but] we can’t see it—because it’s 68 feet up”. It makes sense … if you ignore the price tag. A video is here.
In the midst of a major touring retrospective of his work, Melehi has fallen victim to Covid19. After an initial education in Morocco, he trained in Europe and then New York. While in New York, he developed a highly coloured, hard-edged abstract style that won international recognition. Returning to Morocco Melehi’s pioneering wave motifs showed how modern abstraction could be infused with Berber culture and Arabic calligraphy.