The Easel

11th August 2026

David Geffen Galleries

Ian Wardropper | The Burlington Magazine | 1st August 2026

A renowned former art gallery director assesses LACMA’s dramatic building. A new building was sorely needed, and its exterior has “undeniable Brutalist power”. High internal natural light levels and raw concrete walls limit what art can be placed where.  “Shockingly”, the building allows barely 1% of the collection to be shown. Is the building just following the current popularity of “mixed-use lifestyle centres”? Pleasure is at the core of a museum experience but “art is [hopefully] not forgotten in the process”.

4th August 2026

Betye Saar, influential assemblage artist who ‘liberated’ Aunt Jemima, dies at 99

Carolina Miranda | LA Times | 27th July 2026

Saar leapt into fine art on seeing an exhibition of assemblages by Joseph Cornell. Soon enough she was scouring garage sales for objects with “a certain energy” that she could use in her shoe box sized assemblages. Often, they addressed political themes, most famously those where she included (and ridiculed) Black mammy figures that represented “Black female servitude”. Said she,” I like to think I recycled those images from negative to positive”. Images of some key works are here.

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