The Easel

28th March 2023

Gagosian’s DALL-E–Enabled Art Exhibition Throws Us Headfirst into the Uncanny Valley

Shanti Escalante-De Mattei | ARTnews | 24th March 2023

This writer hurries to shout ‘crisis’, mentioning it in her second sentence. Do image generating algorithms like DALL-E comprise a crisis? Beeple (remember him?) and crypto art emerged in 2021 and the sky hasn’t fallen in. Images from DALL-E are more sophisticated, but have we crossed a “digital Rubicon”?  Irrespective of any crisis, the idea of “authenticity” needs re-thinking. We already live in “an era of unreal-ness. Since when is “realness” [in art] a metric?”

The Many Dimensions of Murakami’s Mr. Pointy

Annie Morse | Art Institute of Chicago | 21st March 2023

Murakami’s superflat creations are all high gloss and “cartoon gaiety”. Is it serious art? The writer thinks so and references Murakami’s work, Mr Pointy. The figure’s pointy head, a connection to the celestial, is a reference to Buddha. It adopts a Shiva-like pose and is supported by a squat figure, the colour of which suggests both “galactic vastness and the detailing on a muscle car”. Under all that is a lotus blossom, an emblem of purity. Murakami, she says, deserves “repeated, close looking”.

Centurion SH Raza in Paris: ‘Child of five elements’

Uma Nair | Times of India | 21st February 2023

Raza embodies the idea of transcultural. He trained in the Indian figurative tradition of sculpture and miniature painting before modernism drew him to Paris in 1950. His work morphed accordingly, from figuration to ‘French” landscapes and then (following a visit to the US) to his acclaimed abstractions. The constants in his work were high contrast colours and geometric symbols, both distinctly Indian. Said Raza “I remained an Indian painter in my heart”. More background is here.

Guggenheim Bilbao honours Kokoschka as “Rebel From Vienna”

Staff | Archyde | 17th March 2023

By temperament and life experience, Kokoschka was a rebel. A outré member of Vienna’s avant garde, his early portraits of intellectuals and artists are, at their best, psychologically intense and disquieting. After fighting in WW1, he addressed his art to the political, requiring him to flee to Britain during WW2. After the war, his defence of figurative painting against the encroachment of abstract expressionism was sufficiently spirited that one critic remarked “the old dog could still bite”.

“Chronorama”: Photography as a work of art

Nathalie Dassa | Blind | 16th March 2023

The collections of famous individuals, when put on exhibition, sometimes feel ambiguous. Are they an expression of curatorial ideas or a flaunting of wealth? The Pinault collection exhibition in Venice is a “banquet” of famous images, many drawn from the storied archive of Condé Nast. The nagging question is whether the show has a unifying theme. Perhaps it is simply a reminder of the glamour that photography had before the age of social media.

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”.

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