The Easel

14th November 2023

Camille Claudel through Five Works

Emerson Bowyer | ARTIC | 10th October 2023

Chicago continues the slow process of recognising Claudel for her achievements rather than as a “warm-up act” for Rodin. The male dominated French patronage system deemed sculpture not a “polite art” suitable for women. Even so, French critics of the day were acknowledging her work. Rodin knew as much – there is clear evidence that he borrowed her ideas. Says one critic “Claudel was the finest sculptor of her time, bar none”. A bio piece is here.

‘Wild Beasts’ at Large at the Met

AR Hoffman | New York Sun | 19th October 2023

Van Gogh’s daring use of colour inspired younger artists, Derain and Matisse in particular. They famously spent the summer of 1905 exploring a “momentous” idea – using colour not to describe but to express emotion. The idea was briefly all the rage and, in that time, Parisian artists used colour with the volume turned right up. It was one more step in art unshackling itself from realism. Henceforth, “colour was keyed to the artist’s experience.” Images are here.

Daido Moriyama retrospective: 60 years of influence

Geoff Harris | Amateur Photographer | 27th October 2023

Despite widespread acclaim, some think Moriyama is still underappreciated outside Japan. Perhaps that is because his images are unpretentious – grainy, black and white, disregarding technical perfection. What distinguishes him is his introspective style. “He is not really looking at the city per se, but at his inner territory – the streets of his mind.” Moriyama’s images record moments when “what’s in front of him somehow chimes with his emotions and memories.”

Earthly Delights by Jonathan Jones: Review

Ed Voves | Art Eyewitness | 31st October 2023

Jonathan Jones, art critic for the Guardian, regularly appears in The Easel due to his clear, informed criticism. His new book on the Renaissance is thus worth noting. Shibboleths get challenged. Is van Eyck’s famous Arnolfini Portrait a wedding scene, as often assumed, or a rite of a religious sect? Did da Vinci insert his personal homoerotic tastes into The Last Supper? This “superb, thoughtful” book reminds us that one needs to keep an open mind.

Max Beckmann’s Singular Path

Thomas Micchelli | Hyperallergic | 19th October 2023

When WW1 arrived, Beckmann was nearly 30 and facing a creative crisis. Convulsing world events made his “proto-modernist” portraits and landscapes look trivial. His art shifted to focus on social observation. Appalled by Weimar Republic decadence and Italian fascism, he somehow retained an affection for his fellow humans. His realist art in the post-war decade showcased the “private splendours and public horrors” of the unfolding 20th century.

Southern photography at Atlanta’s High Museum

Sammy Dalati | The Magazine Antiques | 9th October 2023

It must take quite a lot of local pride – or optimism – to schedule a photography show about one’s region. The US South is complex – and has many acclaimed photographers – so a “comprehensive” survey of its photography has a lot to cover. Myths abound and not just those peddled by politicians making for, says one critic, “a great mix of documentary and artistry.” And the truth about the South – well, its complicated.

7th November 2023

The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans

Phoebe Farris | Cultural Survival | 4th October 2023

Washington’s National Gallery is having its first show of contemporary native American art in 70 years. So overdue! One challenge to appreciating this work is its radically different ideas of landscape. Says the curator, an acclaimed artist, “a sacred place is everything around us … all six directions. [These] works do not necessarily fit into the mainstream European definition of landscape, with a horizon line and a blue sky.” The linked piece is something of an explainer.

Robert Irwin, pioneer of Light and Space art who designed Getty’s Central Garden, dies at 95

Christopher Knight | LA Times | 25th October 2023

Irwin was a young Los Angeles artist when a study trip to Europe confirmed his lack of interest in art history. Subsequently deciding that “the pure subject of art is human perception”, he became the leading figure in California’s Light and Space movement. Using a wide variety of materials, he created “fastidious” and widely influential site-specific pieces intended to “get people to perceive how they perceive”. Irwin, says this writer “is an eminence of post-war American art.”

El Anatsui – interview: ‘My inspiration comes from things people have used – there are so many endless delights’

Veronica Simpson | Studio International | 27th October 2023

A commission for Tate’s Turbine Hall is a great career opportunity. Given its vast proportions, though, it is not an opportunity for the faint-hearted. El Anatsui’s voluptuous sail-like sculptures, made with his signature bottletops, are so big that most reviewers do no more than describe. One brief assessment suffices – “a shimmering, gorgeous, powerful elegy for a half-forgotten past”. An interview with the artist in the linked piece is illuminating.

Judy Chicago Didn’t Stop at ‘The Dinner Party’

Jillian Steinhauer | Vulture | 17th October 2023

The art world is all the better for Chicago’s long career. Art in 1960’s LA was a man’s game and Chicago’s demands for access weren’t appreciated. Early minimalist works, glossy and in soft colours, were deemed “too feminine”. Now, they are “exhilarating”. However, perhaps her activism distracted her from her art, one critic noting that some works are “clumsy and crass”. The writer seems to agree – “not all of women’s work is about womanhood.”

The Story Behind Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Most Beguiling Photographs

Lydia Figes | AnOther | 30th October 2023

Sugimoto found that the camera is loose with the truth. Careful lighting and long exposures allowed him to make stuffed animals appear alive. Similar effects could also be achieved, he found, with waxwork figures. Long exposures of seascapes create weirdly flat – almost abstract – images that somehow speak of a post-human world. Says the curator “no-one has ever made photographs like these. His work isn’t about documenting the world.”  Images are here.

Nicole Eisenman: the lesbian pioneer who changed art

Waldemar Januszczak | Waldemar.tv | 30th October 2023

Eisenman’s first retrospective in London has opened with surprisingly little of the effusive praise associated with much of her career. Says one critic, her fusing of “Renaissance aesthetic with comics and queer porn … comes across as grandstanding and narrow”. The above writer more or less agrees. “Eisenman’s recurring weakness [is] the absence of an edit button. [Her current work is] increasingly weak and increasingly big. As art they are clunky fails.”

A show of Hans

Tanya Harrod | The World of Interiors | 16th October 2023

The extraordinary 35-year collaboration between British studio potters Lucie Rie and Hans Coper generated a global reputation for each. Rie, being the more gregarious (and long lived) has enjoyed most of the posthumous attention. That’s a pity. Of the two, Coper was the more sculptural and his pieces “full of stilled energy”. Rie acknowledged as much, saying “I am a potter but he was an artist”. A video about Coper’s work (11 min) is here and some images here.

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