The Easel

5th October 2021

French and Russian Art on a ‘War and Peace’ Scale

Jason Farago | The New York Times | 30th September 2021

Late Tsarist Russia spawned two great modern art collections. The Shchukin Collection was shown in Paris in 2016. Now the Morozov Collection is on show, also in Paris, the first time it has left Russia. No superlative seems too grand. Bonnard’s landscapes are a “showstopper”, the Gauguin’s are of “staggeringly high quality” and there are “incredible helpings of Cézanne, Monet and Matisse”. A “stupefying” exhibition, one that is “legitimately historic”. Images are here.

Jasper Johns

Blake Gopnik | 4Columns | 1st October 2021

In contrast to last week’s piece on Johns, this one focuses on the art. Starting out straight after abstract expressionism, Johns wanted to make art about real things. Are his celebrated flags ‘things’, or symbols of an idea? Do his ‘numbers’ pictures express a pure idea or are they objects borrowed from commercial art? This duality is the admirable aspect of Johns’ work. Less clear is whether, at some point, his art lost its cleverness and became a production of ‘things’.

Judith Joy Ross’s timeless and empathetic portraits

Rebecca Bengal | Aperture | 9th September 2021

Ross’s acclaimed portrait projects can be years long – members of Congress, people at Washington’s Vietnam memorial, Pennsylvania school pupils. They are mostly formal compositions, set in unremarkable locations. What makes them stand out is their emotional acuity, the ability to reveal a private self. Ross has that ability to connect with her subjects: “I know I’m being delusional. But I like to think I’m capturing the real thing.”

Spinning yarns with Sheila Hicks

Yasmine Seale | Apollo | 2nd October 2021

A studio visit with Hicks, the eminent textile artist. Her best known “fibre sculptures” are large, some being installations for building foyers that “emulate the splendour of the natural world.” Hicks also has a liking for small works, including “little exercises in disobedience” that result from working with unruly thread.  This is, says the writer, a world of craftmanship and “slow adventure”, where finished objects “demand to be touched”. More images are here.

Understanding ‘L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped’

Wilson Tarbox | Frieze | 28th September 2021

The Arc de Triomphe is now being unwrapped IRL, with little sign of a critical consensus. One French journalist tweeted “I am ashamed.” A writer happily admits the wrapping is both “nonsensical” and “transfixing, like seeing a frozen waterfall.” To another, it’s “joyous and lurid” and a reminder that “all things must come to an end”. Finally, a Paris resident – “I pass the Champs-Élysées most days. I never even notice the Arc de Triomphe. But now, I see it.”

The Quietly Rebellious Art of Iranian Women and What We Can Learn From Them

Susanna Schrobsdorff | Time | 20th September 2021

The organisers of this New York show have a point – Western images of Iran often focus on women in black chadors, living seemingly downtrodden lives. This, and other, misconceptions about Iran, apparently have added impetus to that country’s contemporary art. Tehran’s art scene is flourishing and women artists are prominent participants. They are philosophical about the restrictions they work under: “in Iran absolutely nothing is black and white”.

Noguchi

Dominic Lutyens | The Design Edit | 27th September 2021

Noguchi would have disliked being described as ‘designer and artist’. For him, his tables, lights and sculptures were not fashion items but a reflection of the human activity associated those objects. Well, at least one critic doesn’t see Noguchi’s modernist designs as art, either. They have “no punch … no emotional or psychic energy, just … harmless creations”. Responds another “just because something is simple, modest and popular does not mean it is not art.”

28th September 2021

Frans Hals: The Male Portrait, review: pale, stale, male – and exhilarating

Alastair Sooke | The Telegraph | 16th September 2021

Hmm – a show exclusively of male portraits! The curatorial rationale is to celebrate the “astounding originality” of Baroque portraitist Hals and his masterpiece, The Laughing Cavalier. Done in 1624, the painting is a tour de force of vivid personality, showy fabrics and “27 [shades] of black”. Hals “revolutionized” portraiture with strategies that made his subjects “immediate, sparky, and natural”.

Neo Rauch’s antagonistic art

Thomas Meaney | The New Yorker | 27th September 2021

German unification, it seems, is ongoing. Rauch is from the East and while feted in New York, he gets criticism from Berlin. His figurative work, sometimes called arch-traditionalist, reflects his East German training. These works are “huge, dense, ostensibly narrative scenes in which narrative is stubbornly elusive … [recalling] Renaissance art one minute and socialist realism the next … allegories to which Rauch has thrown away the key”.

The unseen masterpieces of Frida Kahlo

Holly Williams | bbc.com | 20th July 2021

Kahlo has become “merchandise”, reflecting the way her colourful personal life and numerous self-portraits grab our attention. A survey of her known work, much of which has been ignored, finds surprising diversity. Her art didn’t start with her husband’s encouragement. She had wider influences; her father’s still lifes, surrealism, Old Masters. One thing we know hasn’t changed, though – “Kahlo made her work speak loudly to us”.

Jasper and me

Jerry Saltz | Vulture | 22nd September 2021

Not so much a review of a huge Johns retrospective as a personal meditation on his enigmatic work. Johns rebelled against 1950’s abstract expressionism with radical work about “things the mind already knows … things seen and not examined”. It had a huge impact – “like the Beatles kicking out Elvis”, opening the door to important new art ideas. Johns, says the show’s curator, is “[perhaps] the most important living artist for more than 60 years”.

Jerry Gogosian’s First Impressions of Art Basel in Basel

Jerry Gogosian | Artsy | 23rd September 2021

Art Basel, the premier name in art fairs, was held this past week. Organisers claimed it was the “first full scale international art fair since 2019”. Proving one’s vaccination status was apparently a nightmare. American collectors were missing as were free oysters at the VIP breakfast. Most galleries only presented works that were easy to sell. And there was an “NFT kiosk”. So, back to business as usual? Hmm … let’s see.

The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects

Alvaro de Menard | Fantastic Anachronism | 17th September 2021

Sitting in Florence in 1550, Vasari wrote Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Art history was born. Can we still learn from this work? Gossip is a constant in life. Vasari’s favourite artists “broadly are our own” implying that taste in art doesn’t change much. And even back then, art was a winner-take-all market, but “craftsmen who have as their ultimate and principal end gain and profit rarely become very excellent”.

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