The Easel

22nd October 2024

Haegue Yang review – a must-see show if the slats of venetian blinds make you cry

Jonathan Jones | The Guardian | 8th October 2024

Oh dear. Yang’s survey show has produced a pile-on. Her sculptures are made of a wide variety of commonplace materials and are intended to be immersive. They attract a few tepid compliments – “bold”; “exuberant” – but mostly criticism. “Sometimes a pile of stuff is just a pile of stuff” says one critic. “Completely unrewarding” says another. And, to top it off “Yang’s art doesn’t evoke much beyond the chaos and fun we experience when we go down the shops”. Ouch!

15th October 2024

Machines like us

Silke Hohmann | Monopol | 7th October 2024

When Lee builds her “body horror” sculptures, she isn’t looking for a considered judgement but rather wants to “trigger extreme feelings.” As the recipient of this year’s Tate Turbine Hall commission, her latest work is there, writ large. The assemblage of pumps, motors and hoses drip and squirt yukky-looking fluids, leading the writer to call it “disturbingly dark work that balances on the edge of disgust”.  Another critic says its “the best installation for years.”  A third says its kitsch. Phew! Images are here.

Francis Bacon: A Very Human Presence

Christian House | Sotheby's | 23rd September 2024

It has been said that Bacon’s work attracts admiration rather than fondness. That’s understandable given the “painterly violence” of his portraits. One is described as “monstrous … [the subject’s] face a pummelled, minced mask of meat”. Lovers appear in different palettes – “a bruised prism of hues, from rich plums to sickly greens and deep pinks”. Says one smitten critic “Bacon holds his own here with Rembrandt [and] with Velázquez’s flickering fluid brushwork”.

Fashion photography is in vogue

Staff | The Economist | 3rd October 2024

Fashion photography is increasingly “coveted” as fine art. Is that because we are more celebrity-obsessed, or because fashion photography has changed? Deborah Turbeville’s photography suggests the latter. Diverging from the usual glossy fashion aesthetic, her images were unpolished and show women preoccupied with their own thoughts. Such images proved influential and brought a darker element to fashion. Said Turbeville “I never thought the clothes were the main thing.”

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