The Easel

7th March 2023

Wangechi Mutu Stages a Family Reunion

Emily Lordi | Cultured | 2nd March 2023

Mutu gained prominence with her figurative collages but her sculptures have lifted her reputation further. Many of these works address the legacy of colonialism or gender violence and have the ability to unsettle. The contrast of materials like Nairobi clay in a gleaming New York museum just adds to a sense of disruption. That pleases Mutu – “my work marries the beautiful and the grotesque, because [this is] what my country is about.” One of the top 10 shows of the year, says one critic.

The many faces of Tommy Kha

Larissa Pham | British Journal of Photography | 3rd March 2023

Kha’s family fled Vietnam, so he grew up in the US South. Unsurprisingly, a theme of his photography is the dislocated immigrant experience. He records the efforts of his family to conform to the American idea of “Asian-ness”, even though that Asian-ness is “an uncodified blob, like the ‘Asian’ section at a grocery store”. Kha thus thinks of his photography as both a “haunting, being possessed by the past” and an exorcism, “trying to create something new”. Images are here.

Pen to paper

Warren Frye | The New Criterion | 8th February 2023

Antwerp in the 1500’s was booming and its middle class wanted the finer things in life, including stained glass, tapestries and prints. These crafts all required preparatory drawings, leading the city to become a centre of graphic art.  Drawings became art works in their own right, depicting complex mythologies, religious themes and scenes from everyday life. This is, says the museum, a “once-in-a-lifetime” exhibition that shows how the Northern Renaissance “transformed daily life”.

28th February 2023

Enter the mesmerising, AI-driven world of artist Refik Anadol

TF Chan | Wallpaper | 25th February 2023

Perhaps wanting to refresh its cutting-edge credentials, New York’s MoMA commissioned Anadol, a data artist(?) to create an AI artwork using images from its own collection.  This review of the resulting work has lots of “gee whizz” techno-speak but conspicuously little about its aesthetics. ChatGPT, when tasked by a magazine to review the piece, came back with eerily similar techno-speak. Yawns one critic, it’s “only a screensaver”. A video of Anadol’s installation is here.

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