HELEA Gallery·Nov 5Standing Still in Front of a Painting: A Ten-Minute ExperimentIn a museum, we spend about twenty seconds in front of a single painting. That’s less time than it takes to pick a sticker in a messaging…
HELEA Gallery·Nov 3The Art of Pleasing Everyone: What Lies Behind Kitsch in PaintingThe word ‘kitsch’ first appeared in Munich in the second half of the nineteenth century, and over the following century and a half it has…
HELEA Gallery·Oct 26Camera vs. Brush: How Photography Rewrote the Rules of PaintingWhen the daguerreotype appeared in 1839, traditional art was given up for dead. Yet the camera did not displace painting — it relieved it…
HELEA Gallery·Oct 23‘I Could Do That!’ Why Abstraction Isn’t as Simple as It LooksPollock splattered paint, Rothko painted colored rectangles. So why are their works worth millions, while similar experiments don’t turn…
HELEA Gallery·Oct 20Too Good to Be True: Buildings Dreamed Up by PaintersMany of the buildings we admire on old canvases never stood on any street. Why did painters spend centuries constructing cities that exist…
HELEA Gallery·Oct 19Colour as Music: Why Van Gogh ‘Rewrote’ MilletHow black-and-white prints became the score from which Van Gogh composed a true symphony of colour
HELEA Gallery·Oct 16Why an Amateur’s Painting Can Be Stronger Than an Academic OneIn conversations about art, the word “amateur” sounds almost like a diagnosis: the person tried, but fell short. The reality is more…
HELEA Gallery·Oct 15Why Do You Need a Curator If You Already Have Taste?A good painting isn’t necessarily an expensive one, and a technically accomplished painting isn’t necessarily an interesting one. Here’s…
HELEA Gallery·Oct 13How a Cat in a Kimono Slipped Past the Censor — and a Poodle Mocked the CourtWhy a poodle in a wig is funnier than a real judge, and how cats in stage costumes helped artists get around bans. How painters hid people…
HELEA Gallery·Oct 12Why the Impressionists Painted Ugly PlacesRailway stations, factory chimneys, smoky embankments, drab suburbs — the Impressionists stubbornly chose subjects deemed unfit for…
