The Easel

17th September 2019

The American realism of painter Amy Sherald

Having painted Michelle Obama’s portrait, some things follow – notably higher expectations. Sherald doesn’t seem fazed, holding fast to the idea of painting people like herself “just being themselves … [not] about identity necessarily”. The Obama portrait is about a specific person but her other portraits are less about individuals and more conceptual, ““archetypes” of black experience”.

11th September 2019

How Kenyan-Born Artist Wangechi Mutu Is Taking Over the Met

The façade of New York’s Met has four niches intended for sculptures. Empty for over a century they are about to be filled with part African, part futuristic female figures, cast in bronze. This is a signal gesture for an august institution attempting to connect with “the new and the global”. With a forgivable touch of exaggeration, the writer declares “an institution founded on … a Eurocentric view of culture is being turned on its head.”