The Easel

11th May 2021

Peter Hujar: The Show Must Go On

Laurie Barron | Ocula | 5th May 2021

Once just a minor figure in New York’s downtown subculture, Hujar is now seen as a great of American photography. Especially acclaimed are his meticulous, empathetic portraits. Drag performers were a particular fascination because of their courage to be different as well as the ambiguous dividing line between the person and the performance. Said Nan Goldin “he found beauty and value in every stage of life, and grace in every variety of flesh”.

Apocalypse now: John Akomfrah’s The Unintended Beauty of Disaster

Adrian Searle | The Guardian | 15th April 2021

There is plenty of acclaim for Ghanaian-born, London raised Akomfrah’s new show. His videos don’t offer a single flowing narrative. They are montages of images and video footage, visually different but arranged in “affective proximity”. His current work obviously addresses a #blacklivesmatter moment, but also themes of community, migration and the environment. Says one critic “[Collectively, they] stand among the great bodies of art produced this century”.

Markus Lüpertz: Recent Paintings

Joe Lloyd | Studio International | 3rd May 2021

Lüpertz believes in painting and sculpture only (forget new media) and is impatient with those who think otherwise. Like other post-war German artists, he is labelled a neo-Expressionist but that belies a career marked by “variousness of genres”. He has slalomed between extremes, “abstract and figurative … severity and smirk”, making much of his work “inscrutable”, an artist of prowess but one “easier to respect than enjoy”. A career bio on his 80th birthday is here.

4th May 2021

The cardboard cannabis lab: Thomas Demand’s beautifully deceptive realities

Sean O’Hagan | The Guardian | 22nd March 2021

Demand’s work sneaks up on you. His large scale photographs, seemingly of “real life”, actually show meticulously constructed models of the real thing. Why models? Because they are so pervasive – “computer-generated images, video games … the weather forecast, pension plans. [Models are] a completely overlooked cultural technique.” So, what is reality, disorderly real life or the tidy models we use to make decisions?

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