The Easel

21st March 2023

Posed Riddles

Max Norman | The Drift | 28th February 2023

We can’t seem to leave Diane Arbus alone. Since her death in 1971, much has been written about her ambiguous photography. Susan Sontag complicated things by accusing Arbus of exploiting the subjects she drew from society’s margins. Arbus supporters have been fighting this charge ever since. “[We will never fully] disentangle seeing from staring. There is no way of looking that isn’t, in some way, ghoulish. But turning away from that ambivalence would be ghoulish, too.”

‘The Ugly Duchess:’ How an unsettling Renaissance portrait challenges ideas of aging women and beauty

Marianna Cerini | CNN | 17th March 2023

At first glance, Massys’ famous portrait makes fun of its elderly female subject. Her odd face, ridiculous outfit and amorous intent certainly do that. Massys also had other intentions, though. He was riffing on a da Vinci drawing and tapping into Renaissance fascination with the grotesque. More subtly, Massys was subverting the uncritical praise of youth.  “[The painting’s subject] is not apologetic about herself. Elderly women in art [make] us look and think … There’s a lot of power in that”.

David Chipperfield: how the 2023 Pritzker prize winner creates buildings that last

Ano Souto | The Conversation | 10th March 2023

Architecture’s top award, the Pritzker, has gone to Chipperfield, whose architecture has “understated but transformative civic presence”. His signature projects, several in Berlin, create modern spaces that respectfully integrate with existing buildings. This means finding design solutions specific to each circumstance. Says he, “finding beauty in normality seems … very modern and very different from what contemporary society is doing.” Images are here.

Myrlande Constant: Drapo

Ann C Collins | The Brooklyn Rail | 1st March 2023

Before art, Constant made wedding dresses. Those embroidery skills were redeployed when she began making drapo Vodous, Haitian flags that traditionally depict ethnic or religious symbols. Portraits and genre scenes glitter with sequins, tassels, ribbons and beads, making figures “sway and dance “. This is trailblazing art, says one critic, taking the drapo tradition and “blowing it open into a narrative art”. “Pictorial magnificence“ says another; it belongs “on the walls of major museums”.

Who is criticism for?

Lola Seaton | The New Statesman | 14th March 2023

When a work of art is released into the world, its life is independent of its creator. Critics don’t have to be “right” in their appraisal, “just make the case for or against” – if possible, with “virtuoso individuality”. Their role is “to guide towards pleasure and to provide it”. The writer, feeling that great work is often overlooked, exhorts would-be critics to be full-blooded: “the ruthlessly critical deflation of bloated mediocrity … will always be an endangered species worth protecting”.

14th March 2023

‘Going big suited her. Going very big’ – the uncontainable brilliance of sculptor Phyllida Barlow

Adrian Searle | The Guardian | 14th March 2023

Barlow, an art school professor, got her first major show a year after retirement. Kaboom – recognition, gallery representation and multiple honours! An obituary is here; the linked piece is more an appreciation. Mostly made from discarded building materials, her works “fold, they sprawl, they teeter, they slump and erupt. [They are] anti-monumental, for all their size, a wonderful parody of sculpture’s history of self-regarding masculinity, a burlesque of sculptural gravity.”

David Hockney Is Not Afraid to Go High Tech

Mark Guidicci | British Vogue | 23rd February 2023

Moving to Tennessee in the early 1980’s to take up an academic post, Lee started photographing nearby communities. After seven years he abruptly stopped, due to his “minimal” interest in recognition. Decades later, a book and a first exhibition have stunned critics. Says one: ”he is one of the great overlooked luminaries of American picture-making. It’s not often that a body of photography is hoisted up from obscurity and straight into the canon”. Images are here.

Old and New Discoveries: Baldwin Lee Interviewed by Mark Steinmetz

Mark Steinmetz | Bomb | 25th January 2023

Moving to Tennessee in the early 1980’s to take up an academic post, Lee started photographing nearby communities. After seven years he abruptly stopped, due to his “minimal” interest in recognition. Decades later, a book and a first exhibition have stunned critics. Says one: ”he is one of the great overlooked luminaries of American picture-making. It’s not often that a body of photography is hoisted up from obscurity and straight into the canon”. Images are here.

Drippers & Printmakers

Dominic Green | Literary Review | 11th March 2023

When abstract expressionism emerged in postwar New York, the leading critic of the day claimed it a “uniquely American” idea. Well, maybe. New York hosted many artists during the war, notably the famous surrealists. They significantly influenced local artists who were developing new approaches to abstraction. Robert Motherwell commented that abstract expressionism should really have been called “abstract surrealism”.

The great collectors

Marco Grassi | The New Criterion | 13th March 2023

Art collecting in the late 19th century was an “imperial” activity – more was deemed better. Then, private dealers emerged with collections inspired by connoisseurship. Subsequently, gilded age millionaires assembled collections full of rare and famous pieces.  Nowadays, all romance is gone. Collections are a means for “speculative and headline-grabbing self-aggrandizement. Wealth is… the only protagonist—the ultimate reference of merit, quality, content, and meaning.”

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