Artist or monster? Mammoth new Gauguin show reckons with colonial legacy – with limited success
What to do with a problem like Paul Gauguin? The 19th-century French master’s radical experiments with color, space, and syncretic symbolism have made him a canonical artist. Yet it is “Gauguin the monster”—not “Gauguin the artist”—who takes up most of the oxygen in today’s discussions. It is Gauguin—purveyor of primitivist fantasies, symbol of French colonialism … Read more