The Easel

8th October 2024

Mike Kelley, Ghost and Spirit review: American artist’s conceptual art was trashy, visceral and hilarious

Mark Hudson | The Independant | 1st October 2024

When looking at Kelley’s work, says the writer, just “[go] with the flow”. A product of working class Detroit, Kelley adopted the persona of the disgruntled adolescent.  His influential conceptual art is diverse – performance to video, sculpture to drawing, sewing and stuffed toys – full of ideas and, at times, “wilful crassness”.  “Whether he was a perverse genius or a slightly creepy provocateur (likely both) this show has incredible energy, a sense of the mess and confusion of real life blasting through it.”

1st October 2024

Monet and London review: This will never happen again – don’t miss it

Florence Hallett | iNews | 26th September 2024

These days London’s air is clean but Monet’s affection for the city formed when it was dirty. In three separate visits, he painted the “delicious” winter fogs that, when combined with the “billowing filth” of industry, produced irresistibly beautiful light, His studies of central London and the Thames were finished back in Giverny and “clearly relate” to his famous waterlilies. These paintings are “a revelation beyond exaggeration” and a testament to the “elastic nature of [Monet’s] mind”.

Michael Craig-Martin review – sorry, but these lamps and filing cabinets just aren’t that interesting

Jonathan Jones | The Guardian | 17th September 2024

The tradition of “object-art“ goes back at least to Magritte and his pipe that was “not a pipe”. Craig-Martin started there in 1973 with a glass of water that, he said, represented an oak tree. For decades, though, he has produced cheerfully coloured line drawings of everyday objects. “Perfectly pretty, and perfectly vacant” says one critic. The writer agrees. “If things are just things, how interesting can they be? It’s more like the dry irony of someone who’s forgotten what he’s being ironic about”.

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