The Easel

4th August 2020

The eerie experience of visiting a socially distanced art gallery

Ravi Ghosh | Prospect | 1st August 2020

Impatient for art galleries to re-open, this writer shares his misgivings when he finally gets to visit. Instead of enjoying their “alluring emptiness” he is filled with doubt. “Everyone is masked, and we avoid each other like repelling magnets. We can’t see each other’s smiles under the face coverings, which creates an air of imagined stand-offishness”. Was this visit a mistake? Rather than supportive, has he been “foolish and selfish”? (He did enjoy the art.)

Are sculpture parks having a moment in the sun?

Elizavetta Brandon | Smithsonian.com | 17th July 2020

An appreciation of sculpture parks. Greater diversity of materials has encouraged greater ambition in sculpture. Moving outdoors was logical. Artists relish the challenge of the interplay of light, materials and location. Civic authorities and museums have discovered the popularity of sculpture parks as “outdoor living rooms”. Just the thing when art needs “to be decentralized and dispersed”.  More images are here.

28th July 2020

What Is Lost With the Closing of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise

Jerry Saltz | Vulture | 23rd July 2020

The announced merger of the “deeply influential” Gavin Brown’s Enterprise into the “semi-mega” Gladstone Gallery has led to some amount of wailing. Mourning the loss of an innovative gallery? Apprehension that widespread gallery mergers could rob the art world of its air of romance? Says Gavin Brown, “there needs to be something more … to imagine [galleries] can all start again with business as usual is a collective delusion.”

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