The Easel

1st February 2022

Robert Gober’s Mirror

Jerry Saltz | Vulture | 24th January 2022

Gober’s sculptures of chairs, sinks, legs and more are meticulous, “hyperhandcrafted” as the writer puts it. Why such effort? Careful fabrication makes these objects that we all use seem precious, worthy of our close attention. But then, some details are awry – old windows, for example, that have the curtains hung wrongly. All this helps explain why Gober’s sculptures are acclaimed. They connect us, says the writer, to “something bigger … a promise of new beauty.”

New galleries of Dutch and Flemish art

Ivan Gaskell | The Burlington Magazine | 1st February 2022

Art history has thought the Dutch Golden Age spectacular – superstar artists and a tolerant civil society. Such ideas are now “dead”, replaced with a more realistic narrative about slavery, colonialism and class conflict. How should a museum tell such a radically different story? Very carefully, that’s how. Donor sensitivities abound, as do the expectations of museum visitors. Challenging “received opinion” is a core task of museums and such debates are the “mechanics of museum-making itself”.

Tauba Auerbach: the gift of intellect and its boundaries via new exhibition “SvZ” at SFMOMA

Nate Rynaski | Flaunt | 20th December 2021

Science has a certain romance because it’s where we touch the unknown. Auerbach has spent her career expressing scientific ideas – and the limits of our understanding – in art. Some find her “deeply inquisitive” work tough going, “Uncompromisingly abstract” says one writer. Another grouches that it’s “both too arcane and oversimplified”. Expressing maths through art is daunting, but Auerbach’s work captures the feeling that, when faced with the unknown, “we crave answers”.

‘Hue & Cry’ at the Clark explores controversy of color printmaking in 19th-century France

Murray Whyte | The Boston Globe | 6th January 2022

Printmakers in 19th century France avoided colour printing because it was emblematic of “banished [aristocratic] excess”. By 1870 advances in lithography made cheap colour printing possible, attracting artists like Cassatt, Chéret and, of course, Toulouse-Lautrec. A world first had emerged – “bona fide mass-market art”.  Acceptance into the 1899 Paris Salon brought recognition as fine art. That cost posters their transgressive character and slowly, the art market lost interest.

25th January 2022

Wayne Thiebaud’s artistic eye was so much keener than pop art confections

Phillip Kennicott | The Washington Post | 27th December 2021

One of Thiebaud’s early jobs was as a Disney illustrator, which gave him an enduring admiration for cartoons. He left to paint luscious cakes, pies, bow ties and other Americana, rendered in thick paint and exaggerated colours. They brought him fame. Some saw him as a Pop artist, but he denied his intentions were satirical. Affection seems closer to the mark.  He was still painting at 100, amazed at “the magic of what happens when you put one bit of paint next to another”.

Gainsborough’s Blue Boy: The private life of a masterpiece

Matthew Wilson | bbc.com | 21st January 2022

Gainsborough’s Blue Boy goes on show in London today. Quickly famous after its first showing in 1770, it remains so because its sumptuous beauty supports so many narratives. The image is performative – a young boy, a commoner, striking an aristocratic pose. Modern eyes detect gender fluidity leading to its use in anti-gay material and most recently as a marker of gay pride. It’s a two-century journey from “a pillar of traditional cultural values to gay icon”. Gainsborough would be astonished.

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