The Easel

10th March 2020

Against understanding

Sebastian Moll | Süddeutsche Zeitung | 4th March 2020

Richter is a skeptic. Perhaps this reflects his background – growing up with East Germany’s Socialist Realist aesthetic; and as a German, processing the memory of WWII. Some paintings begin with a photographic image which is then worked until virtually gone. Richter is, says one critic, the “greatest of living painters”. This writer offers a different perspective: “a master of indissoluble ambivalence”. (via Google Translate)

Alona Pardo on destabilising the myths surrounding masculinity

Diane Smyth | British Journal of Photography | 17th February 2020

This photography exhibition has produced an absolute torrent of commentary. Masculinity is cultural and learned from stereotypes – musclemen, athletes, soldiers, fathers. “Generalisations”, protest some reviewers. True, but that doesn’t deny that stereotypes exist or that they are influential. This writer concludes that we need an “emancipation of masculinity” The take of another critic is that men share an overlooked quality – vulnerability.

3rd March 2020

World-class photography, born under the roof of apartheid

Sean O’Toole | Maverick Life | 3rd February 2020

Mofokeng was “man of our messy present”. Firstly a street photographer, then press photographer, his reputation blossomed as a member of a group that documented South Africa’s political life. He avoided violence, instead showing ordinary township life with “fluidity and poetry”. There is, says the writer “a persuasive case for Mofokeng’s place in the pantheon of greats. Not just in South Africa, but globally.”

Older links
Newer links