The Easel

13th August 2019

Full of wonders: Takis at Tate Modern reviewed

Takis died last week, just after the opening of his “epic” London retrospective. Labelling him a pioneer of kinetic art scarcely does him justice. Some of his abstract sculptures use lights while others make strange sounds. Most famous are works that use electromagnetism to suspend objects in mid-air, “frozen in constant, unbearable, unbreakable tension.” Better than an obituary is this video (6 min).

teamLab’s Tokyo Museum Has Become the World’s Most Popular Single-Artist Destination, Surpassing the Van Gogh Museum

An otherwise standard London show on technology had one standout item – an interactive installation by Japanese collective teamLab. Said one critic “the most genuinely interactive, and certainly the most mellow and blissful, I’ve ever experienced.” This is background for the news that teamLab’s Tokyo museum is the world’s most popular “single artist” museum. Food for thought for sceptics of multimedia / video art.

London’s Turbulent Russian Market

Dizzying auction prices obscure the reality that markets are social, that is human, institutions. Take, for example, London’s low profile and low-priced Russian art auctions. “The lead-in is … a Friday evening party held at Shapero Rare Books, opposite Sotheby’s. Christie’s, on Saturday night, have the best cocktails; MacDougall’s, on Sunday, the best music … Bonhams stood out – by hiring the London Russian Ballet School to perform dances”.