The Easel

11th February 2020

Desert Empires: Wonders to Behold

Holland Cotter | The New York Times | 30th January 2020

The southern edge of the Sahara, the Sahel, is politically turbulent. It was not always thus. For thousands of years it was a prosperous trading area, a centre of learning and the location of multiple empires. Its art was much more diverse than the tribal art many today associate with Africa. This show affirms “the integrity and complexity, past and present, of something called the Sahel … there is no “typical,” no one style, no one “Africa.”

At the ICA, rescuing an art star from the auction frenzy

Murray Whyte | The Boston Globe | 30th January 2020

Spotting a hot new artist is easy – reviews overuse the word ‘amazing’ and fascinate about auction prices. Self is one such artist, having gone from student to ‘somebody’ in about five years. Her work features ‘aspirational representations’ of Black females. Says she “For individuals who have been made to feel marginalized … images, and aesthetics become landmarks for self-identification and self-esteem.” And the auctions? “Tasteless”.

How Radical Was the Italian Design of the 20th Century?

Balasz Takac | Widewalls | 9th February 2020

Informative writing without being elegant. Italy’s post-war “economic miracle” created a social backlash. One expression of disaffection was Radical Design, a movement focused on new ideas about how people could live. Outlandish and unwieldy furniture is its key legacy. Amidst a welter of styles, the common theme was to prioritise an object’s ability to communicate an idea above its functionality.

The Eternal Glow of Tiffany’s Sacred Glass

Robert Archembaeu | Hyperallergic | 1st February 2020

As America’s nineteenth century cities grew, churches proliferated. The skyrocketing demand for stained glass windows benefitted, among others, Tiffany. Ecclesiastical windows, infused with American optimism, were the perfect vehicle for his talents – “opalescent coloured glass, glass with embedded inclusions, cut facets, beveling, pressed designs, and scrolling effects, as well as folded glass”.

4th February 2020

Agnes Denes: Absolutes and Intermediates

Deanna Sirlin | theartsection | 5th January 2020

Denes’s 1982 wheat field in a Manhattan landfill site was a seminal work of land art. A New York retrospective shows a career full of divergent ideas – buried poetry, patterned tree plantings, floating sculptures. Technical drawings of “great beauty” attempt to visualize branches of knowledge. And then there are her pyramid sculptures: “what they all convey is the human drama, our hopes and dreams against great odds.”

Artist Noah Davis died tragically at age 32. A New York show reveals a great lost talent

Sebastian Smee | The Washington Post | 31st January 2020

Reviews of this show carry a flavor of ‘what might have been’. Davis’s profile was rising, having early success in the LA art market as well as establishing a thriving Black-centred art space. At just 32, he died. Will his lasting achievement be the art center or his “atmospheric” art? Perhaps the latter, muses the curator of a New York survey: “I think he’s a really great artist”. Says the writer “I think she might be right”.

Making Marvels: Science and Splendor at the Courts of Europe at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ceara Rossetti | gildshire.com | 17th January 2020

Eighteenth century European royalty believed that ‘knowledge is power’. What better way to show this than with ornate scientific objects, like clocks, compasses, telescopes, that displayed both scientific ingenuity and regal erudition. And, if this messaging was too subtle, there was a sub-text. As the history of the Dresden Green diamond makes clear …’if you’ve got it, flaunt it’.

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