The Easel

3rd September 2024

David Anfam, Leading Scholar of Abstract Expressionism Dies Aged 69

Staff | Artlyst | 24th August 2024

Obituaries for art historians are not the usual fare for The Easel, but David Anfam is a worthy  exception. He established his name with ground-breaking research on American Abstract Expressionism and its stars such as Rothko, Pollock and Still. He was a meticulous scholar who wrote in a jargon-free style. Anyone interested in the Ab Ex movement should read this discussion of its origins. His views on curators, the best of whom he considered “true thinkers”, is here.

27th August 2024

ESSAY: The ancient art of Keith Haring

Morgan Meis | The-Easel | 27th August 2024

Haring’s spectacular rise from rural Pennsylvania to art stardom in New York is well known. What is less understood, says Contributing Editor Morgan Meis, is what exactly he achieved. Some art critics at the time thought his work “simplistic” or populist. One called him a master of “witty illustration”. Haring himself seems not to have cared much either way.

Haring thought his street drawings enjoyed some kind of protection because the images were “a form of primitive code.  We’re talking about art as it is connected to ancient things like cult worship, ritual, magic. If Keith Haring’s art is good, it is good because it somehow mobilized the popular imagery of its time in order to create images that feel ancient … the sacred imagery of New York City.”

When Art Talks Back: Jonathan Lethem on Graffiti As Visual and Written Expression

Jonathan Lethem | Literary Hub | 26th August 2024

Purely by chance, a companion piece to the Essay above – an appreciation of graffiti as a city’s dialogue with itself. “This devotional, graphomaniac, filibustering dimension of graffiti haunts me. It suggests tagging as a version of call-and-response, within a city whose cacophony of advertising, decay, and squabbling vernacular voices begs reply. Maybe it’s all a form of prayer—prayer to exist.”

Kandinsky’s hocus-pocus

Mario Naves | The New Criterion | 26th August 2024

What an odd bod Kandinsky was! Enthralled by Theosophy’s mysticism, he was advocating for abstract art as its “highest calling” as early as 1910. His views brought “fervour”  to his art but also detracted from its rigour with “arrays of wiry lines, random puffs of color, and pinched, convulsive rhythms.” Ultimately, “Kandinsky’s iconic abstractions scrabble for a uniformity that’s never forthcoming … outside of their historical context [his] paintings lose power.”

Keiichi Tanaami, pioneering Pop Art visionary, dies at 88

Mark Thompson | The Japan Times | 21st August 2024

Tanaami had two formative childhood experiences, the WW2 bombing of his homeland and watching hundreds of American B-movies. They left him feeling that “truth and falsehood are mixed up”. Like Warhol, he came to art from advertising and his colourful graphic style reflected it. A surreal mashup of traditional Japanese motifs and Western pop culture, his art paved the way for Murakami’s superflat movement. Said Tanaami, “Manga-ish conception, manga-ish composition – I love them all”

How Pacita Abad Wove a Multicultural Tapestry of Humanity

Elisa Carollo | Observer | 20th August 2024

One review notes Abad’s limited representation in major museums, presumably reflecting the usual bias against women artists. A big New York retrospective hints at change. Hers was a peripatetic career and her signature quilted paintings, once dismissed as decorative, are now seen as cosmopolitan. Variously depicting aquatic worlds, social-realist scenes of refugees and tribal masks, she created a “freewheeling artistic environment”. Asked about her artistic contribution in America, Abad said “colour”.

Were these Renaissance masterpieces some of the world’s first ‘viral images’?

Osman Can Yerebakan | CNN | 15th August 2024

A recognisably modern art world took shape in 15th century Belgium when booming trade brought prosperity to cities like Antwerp. Religious art had traditionally been favoured by nobles and the clergy. However, newly wealthy merchants also wanted glossy portraits and realistic scenes of everyday life. To help them, a new class of professionals emerged, art dealers. Art had become a “social spectacle … these paintings are about you and me and what it takes to be human.” Images are here.

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