AIR May 2019

Critique
MAY 2019: ISSUE 96
Art
AIR
Arles Abend Deep, 2017 by Sean Scully. Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris © Sean Scully. Photo: courtesy the artist
e in doubt. Scully is a
“Bphenomenon,” writes Rachel
Campbell-Johnston for The Times, (as
a preamble to her review of Sea Star
– Sean Scully, at the National Gallery
until 11 August). “A newly released
biopic tells the story of a boy who,
born to an impoverished family in
Dublin and brought up rough in south
London, rose to artistic fame through
the sheer pugilistic power of his selfbelief...
We find him shuttling... to his
international openings in a private
jet.. We watch one of his canvases
fetching a million at auction. Yet
he remains relatively overlooked.”
“This show, like Scully, is highly
recommended,” says Martin Gayford
for The Spectator. “It’s a beautiful
exhibition of a magnificent painter.”
Clarifies Eddy Frankel in Time Out,
“You’ve got two options. You can either
try to read a bunch of hefty conceptual
meaning... or you can take them for what
they are: big bloody stripy paintings.
The second approach sits a bit more
comfortably with me. He’s a blustery,
no-nonsense painter, smashing out the
abstraction without too much fuss.”
“The artist’s lush, detailed images
are filled with aloof, snooty, art school
layabouts. The real dregs of creative
society; blue rinse beauties and hip
young things in vintage sportswear...
It’s like being at the worst party in
Camberwell ever,” quips Time Out’s
Eddy Frankel of Chloe Wise: Not That
We Don’t, at Almine Rech London. “But
they are really good paintings. Wise
has an incredible skill, and a wonderful
compositional eye. All these soft
young faces are surrounded by bodies;
lost, isolated in seas of humans. Each
figure is somehow totally alone despite
the humanity and affection they’re
engulfed in.” Says Maelstrom, “For
someone so young, Wise has already
made a serious name for herself in
the art world. She’s made fans far and
wide with her work that plays largely
on themes of consumer culture and
social media trends.” Vulture writer
Jessica Pressler interviewed the
artist: “Wise’s social-media following
skyrocketed, and she started getting
offers from brands asking her to model
or wear things on Instagram. ‘It was
weird because I was kind of embraced
by the fashion world at the same
time I was critiquing it,’ she said.”
“It is more than four decades since
William Eggleston insisted that fineart
photography didn’t have to be
black-and-white...” recalls Alastair
Sooke in The Telegraph review of 2¼, at
David Zwirner until 1 June. “Today, of
course, Eggleston’s pictures no longer
flabbergast anybody – if anything, in our
era of smartphones and social media,
in which ephemeral colour photography
is so ubiquitous, it is surprising that his
work seemed startling as recently as
the Seventies.” Chris Waywell explains
in Time Out that, “The title refers to two
and a quarter inches. Medium-format
cameras use 2.25in square negatives.
You can blow them up real big, and the
quality is amazing... These pictures,
taken in 1977 are as glowingly, troubling
beautiful as any of his work, doused
in a light that’s sweet and sickly as
barbecue glaze.” Reports Louisa Buck
in The Art Newspaper, “When asked why
he never captioned his photographs,
he replied: ‘Words and photographs
don’t mix. You cannot express the
meaning of a photograph in words.’”
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