Beyond the Canvas
Titus Kaphar's Shifting the Gaze, 2017
Painting is a visual language where everything in the painting is meaningful, is important, is coded. But sometimes, because of the...
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Beyond the Canvas
Aug 24, 20201 min read
Amy Sherald's portrait of Breonna Taylor
It's been 176 days since Breonna Taylor was killed. Breonna was 26-year-old, she worked as an emergency room technician and was on the...
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Beyond the Canvas
Aug 23, 20202 min read
Carrie Mae Weems' The Kitchen Table Series (1990)
"I think that most work that’s made by black artists is considered to be about blackness. [Laughs.] Unlike work that’s made by white...
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Beyond the Canvas
Aug 16, 20202 min read
A few thoughts on Among the Trees - Hayward Gallery, London
Ever heard of that theory according to which trees are immortal? No? Then you clearly do not know me very well. Of course trees are not...
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Beyond the Canvas
Aug 1, 20202 min read
A heathen's pilgrimage to the National Gallery
Today I'm celebrating my first trip into central London after 5 months of mostly staying at home. The Titian: Love, Desire, Death...
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Beyond the Canvas
Jul 27, 20202 min read
Dwelling: In This Space We Breathe, Khadija Saye (1992-2017)
‘The series was created from a personal need for spiritual grounding after experiencing trauma. The search for what gives meaning to our...
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Beyond the Canvas
Jul 24, 20202 min read
Gordon Parks' chronicles of everyday segregation
"I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had...
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Beyond the Canvas
Jul 16, 20201 min read
Expanding the Canon: the Portraiture of Barkley L. Hendricks
Barkley L. Hendricks mostly painted portraits, a genre that flourished during the Renaissance becoming the symbol of the sitter's...
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Beyond the Canvas
Jul 5, 20202 min read
Betye Saar's "The Liberation of Aunt Jemima"
The Black Lives Matter movement is having an extraordinary impact on the way brands communicate and behave. Whether it's just 'woke...
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Beyond the Canvas
Jul 4, 20201 min read
An urgent appeal: Save the arts. Save our theatres.
An unusual post this week, but the cause is one that's very close to my heart. I grew up going to the theatre with my mother. Every week...
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Beyond the Canvas
Jun 27, 20201 min read
Celebrating the female black queer gaze: Mickalene Thomas
The growing momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement and the increased media focus on black culture have brought a multitude of...
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Beyond the Canvas
Jun 20, 20202 min read
Die Neue Sachlichkeit: Christian Schad's "Agosta, the Pigeon-Chested Man, and Rasha, the Black Dove"
Art history is punctuated by a constant juxtaposition of departure from and alignment to tradition. At the same time as some artists are...
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Beyond the Canvas
Jun 10, 20202 min read
The Unforgettables: Felice Casorati's "Portrait of Silvana Cenni"
Suspended between Piero della Francesca's spatial geometries and De Chirico's metaphysics, Casorati paints a portrait that looks like a...
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Beyond the Canvas
Jun 6, 20202 min read
In Memoriam: Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935-2020)
Christo left us earlier this week, he died in his New York home at the age of 84. Together with his life and work partner Jeanne-Claude...
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Beyond the Canvas
Jun 1, 20201 min read
Museums are neutral. Or are they?
Defining what a museum is and does is no mean feat. We know museums do a lot more than just preserve and display valuable objects that...
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Beyond the Canvas
May 26, 20202 min read
Musings on (online) auctions and the timelessness of Morandi's still lives
I have been to a couple of auctions in London and I thought there was something uniquely intriguing about the whole process. The...
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Beyond the Canvas
May 25, 20202 min read
Is it curtains for the blockbuster exhibition?
The numbers are in. According to The Art Newspaper's yearly survey, Ai Weiwei is officially the world's most popular artist. His...
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Beyond the Canvas
May 22, 20202 min read
The Game Changers: Caravaggio's Death of the Virgin - Louvre, Paris
This is not just my favourite Caravaggio, this is the ultimate Caravaggio. For me, this is the painting that demonstrates the full extent...
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Beyond the Canvas
May 17, 20202 min read
The Unforgettables: Parmigianino's Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien
It's Mannerist week chez Fran. With its slightly unnatural proportions, that cheeky Bronzino got me thinking about the creation of...
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Beyond the Canvas
May 13, 20201 min read
The Unforgettables: Bronzino's Portrait of a Young Man - The Met, New York
Just like we love real people, I hereby decree that it is entirely acceptable to have feelings for the subject of a painting. For I have...
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