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 disrupting and trying to innovate, others are formally reconnecting with classical tradition in its broadest sense. Years ago, I studied this phenomenon during the first half of the XX century Europe, the so-called persistence of realism (thank you Christine if you are reading).

German Christian Schad (1894-1932) is one of the most prominent members of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), a movement that emerged in the 1920s as a response to the disruptive excesses of abstract expressionism. He mostly produced portraits, his style was elegant and precise but never failed to convey unsettling atmospheres. His unsmiling sitters ooze a sense of enigma and underlying complex psychology.

In this picture symmetry and harmony are in sharp contrast with the ambiguous subject matter. Agosta and Rasha are funfair performers, they are not the typical portrait subjects. Schad goes his own way and chooses to celebrate the socially outcast. Agosta, who probably attracted and repelled the public for his physical deformity, is painted like a Bellini Madonna, solemnly enthroned and looking almost regal. He averts his gaze and refuses to engage with the viewer, thus taking control of the relationship. Stop staring at me, he is saying.

Rasha, who is said to have been a snake dancer from Madagascar, is looking straight at us, fearless and proud. But she also looks vulnerable, possibly humiliated by having to wear a stereotypical African dress so we can be entertained. To me, she is the visual representation of the lure of the exotic that has its roots in colonialism and its worldview.

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Christian Schad (1894 -1982)

Agosta, the Pigeon-Chested Man, and Rasha, the Black Dove, 1929

Tate Modern, London

Njideka Akunyili Crosby's identity tales

A powerhouse. There is no other way to describe this extraordinary artist whose breakneck rise has seen her work displayed and celebrated at some of the major art venues globally (MOCA and Venice Biennale to name a couple).

Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based Akunyili Crosby (b. 1983) is a child of the African diaspora. We see it in her vibrant work, which is imbued with personal and cultural references. Her large, unframed canvases tell stories about herself and her family, but they are equally filled with nods to Nigerian politics and pop culture. Her process is unique - she uses cut-outs from magazines and transfers them onto the canvas to create a sort of layered narrative 'upholstery'. Her intricate work is suspended between painting, printing and photography - it needs to be viewed from a distance to appreciate the complexity of the composition, but can only be fully understood if we look closely at the details of each individual snapshot.

In 2018, she was asked by Art on the Underground to create a mural for Brixton station, the area of South London where the Black Caribbean community settled in the late 1940s. Njideka approached the subject of the Windrush generation, which has now turned into a shameful page of British history, with care and respect. As a non-caribbean, but also as an immigrant herself, she wanted to do it justice. She spent 4 months in London doing research in the archives to make sure she had the knowledge required to produce a well-informed visual tribute. The result is "Remain, Thriving", a poignant contemporary conversation piece that depicts a group of people in a domestic setting. Akunyili Crosby paints them surrounded by objects new and old symbolising the connection between the past and the present, and the strength of their identity as they make a new life for themselves in the UK. In this urban art installation we recognise the same powerful sense of intimacy that runs through Njideka's body of work, a trademark of her ability to represent the merging of different cultures with all their complexities.

Lastly, I wanted to thank Brooklyn Rail for organising such a compelling and insightful talk, and not least for showing the art world how to do the zoom thing properly.

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Njideka Akunyili Crosby, "Remain, Thriving", 2018

My photo at Brixton Station, London

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 secular altarpiece. The beauty of this picture lies in its supremely balanced form and subtly ambiguous subject matter. Silvana is portrayed as an idealised figure caught in a moment of silence and reflection, somewhere between hieratic ecstasy and more mundane tiredness. The sculptural draping of her dress is reminiscent of Michelangelo's marble wonders and the rigorous palette conveys a sense of apparent serenity. For such an intimate painting, a woman seated in her room, there is a dintinct sense of solemn monumentality.

In Casorati's restrained decorative linearity and harmony of shapes we see his allegiance to a movement called Ritorno all'Ordine (Return to Order). Born as a reponse to the avant-gardes, it rejected their extreme disruptiveness in favour of the adoption of a traditional painting style and approach to art.

Casorati was also a master of Magic Realism, a rather effective oxymoron that describes a style that is representational, but at the same time far removed from reality. Many of these works, including Silvana's portrait, depict a seemingly peaceful atmosphere while oozing a subtle anxiety.

As it's often the case, we should look no further than primary sources in order to understand the true nature and ambition of an artist's work. In a letter to a friend, Casorati spoke of the sense of unreality that drove his practice: " I have become a visionary, a dreamer, I only paint what I see in my dreams: starry nights, invisible creatures, pure souls, hallucinations ... anything but real and material things ... a whisper, a smile, light and darkness'.

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Felice Casorati (1883-1963)

“Ritratto di Silvana Cenni”,1922

Private Collection, Turin.

Piero della Francesca (c.1415 -1492)

"Polittico della Madonna della Misericordia" (detail), 1445-1462

Museo Civico di Sansepolcro