The Easel

12th July 2022

Medieval Treasures from the Glencairn Museum at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Ed Voves | Art Eyewitness | 28th June 2022

For non-specialists, the question to be asked is whether medieval art can resonate with contemporary audiences. Perhaps it can. This art reflected a mindset that the biblical past was not past but very much alive. The best of these works are the “brilliant” stained glass panels that offer “narrative inventiveness and emotional intensity”. A few record the artist who created the work. These are the distant origins of contemporary Western art, an individual’s expression of what it means to be alive.

Käthe Kollwitz’s Self-Portrait en face

Starr Figura | MoMA Magazine | 30th June 2022

Better representation of women artists in MoMA’s celebrated collection happens slowly – one acquisition at a time. Kollwitz came to prominence with a realist style indifferent to the growing interest in abstraction. Her 1904 self-portrait reflects this determination to forge her own path. It shows her in a “powerfully assertive frontal pose … confident, candid, and unfettered by conventional notions of the feminine … unabashedly asserting herself on behalf of women”.

Thomas Eakins: an American oddity

Michael Prodger | The New Statesman | 6th July 2022

Reviews from the 1980’s extoll Eakins as perhaps the greatest American realist painter of the 19th century. That lofty judgement seems unchanged, especially regarding his portraits that show “unnerving acuity”. Except now there is a caveat, his “inappropriate behavior” – a prim acknowledgement that he was a sexual predator. Does this make his work morally tainted? The writer doesn’t go that far but previously adoring Philadelphia now keeps Eakins very much at arm’s length.

Hard truths: should a ‘serious artist’ stoop to make NFTs?

Chen & Lampert | Art in America | 7th July 2022

The above piece takes an optimistic view, encouraging an artist to get into NFT’s because “paintings are the original NFTs”. (Well, not really) The daunting reality is that NFT sales have “fallen off the cliff”. Some trading platforms have gone bankrupt. Others are tainted by claims of counterfeiting. To top it off, an expert explains that many of the artworks attached to an NFT are not stored securely and may simply disappear.  Incredibly, one executive claims “It’s about the art now, not the speculators”.

Medieval fantasia at the Getty

William Poundstone | LACMA On Fire | 27th June 2022

The medieval period (500 – 1500CE) was a long, long time ago. In contrast to its dismal reputation, it had an active cultural life in which illustrated manuscripts had a central role. Their aesthetics – flat images, big blocks of colour – and images of castles, knights and dragons hugely influence contemporary fantasy culture.  So why does this distant era remain so influential? For centuries, it has been a “misunderstood epoch [that has] became a blank slate for the Western imagination.”

The hidden images found in masterpieces

Jo Lawson-Tancred | bbc.com | 29th June 2022

A case of ‘good AI’ versus ‘bad AI’? AI programs can be trained to create completely new images. Researchers are adapting the idea for research on actual artworks. In some cases, AI is used to assemble overpainted images revealed with X-ray analysis. Another application is having AI “predict” missing parts of a painting. Might such analytics provide “excessive artistic licence”? No, reassures a researcher, they simply “provide more curatorial opportunities to think about interpretation”.

5th July 2022

Bah Lumbung: Kristian Vistrup Madsen at Documenta 15

Kristian Vistrup Madsen | Artforum | 22nd June 2022

Documenta, the famed art mega-event in Germany, has always been Eurocentric. Handing over this year’s event to Ruangrupa, an Indonesian collective, was intended to break that cultural monopoly. It has, with an unusual and diverse programme in which “ethics matter more than aesthetics.” The skeptical writer grudgingly admits that it offers “relief from years of accumulated biennial fatigue”. Says another critic, “We are fortunate to witness so much imagination, so much flourishing”.

In the Black Fantastic review: A beguiling survey of Afrofuturism

Mark Hudson | The Independent | 30th June 2022

Black Fantastic, says the curator, is not a movement but a way of seeing. He is referring to black artists who use “speculative fictions” to address racial inequality and the legacy of slavery. Noting the plentiful surrealism at the current Venice Biennale, the writer suggests “the fantastic” is “an emerging generational sensibility”. The show’s exuberance can be a bit much, at which point one can’t help but focus on “the hard and tangible realities beneath”.

A Remembrance of  Places Both Empty and Full

Megan Craig | The American Scholar | 23rd June 2022

Adams’ images convey a silence, an objectivity. This “isn’t a lack of emotion” says one critic, but “a kind of etiquette. The polite thing to do”. He is regarded as a seminal figure in contemporary photography and, as the linked piece, shows, his quiet images can create a strong emotional response. “The human drive to create order … feels like a losing game. The little church in Ramah … is trying so hard to stand steadily there in its place, even as [it shows] vulnerability to weather, to age, to time.”

The Blue Garden

Craig Lambert | Harvard magazine | 1st July 2022

The Blue Garden is “one of America’s great private residential landscapes”. It was created in 1913 when Newport was the favoured playground of Gilded Age magnates. Its formal layout resembles the floorplan of a cathedral, and originally needed the services of 40 gardeners. It contains “plants of purple, lavender, gray, and white hues that become a shimmering evocation of sky and water”. Recently re-created, it is “a unique expression of the art of landscape architecture”.

Cheech Marin’s Long-Awaited Museum for Chicano Art Opens in California

Matt Stromberg | Hyperallergic | 27th June 2022

Hispanics comprise 40% of the population of California and Texas, yet little of their art appears in public museums. The comedian-actor Cheech Marin has collaborated with a local government body to change that by creating a first, a museum dedicated to Chicano art. A formal review of the collection is here but the happy vibe is best captured in the local press. An artist exults “Chicano art – it’s positive, and it’s truthful, and it’s beautiful.” Marin adds “[it] reveals the sabor (flavor) of the community.”

Older links
Newer links