Photography
Faces Places review - Agnès Varda's enchanted journeyThursday, 20 September 2018
On the eve of her tenth decade, the marvellous Agnès Varda embarked on the enchanted journey that we see in Faces Places. For admirers of the great French director – of whom there are a great many: indeed, it is hard not to be won over by her... Read more... |
Highlights from Photo London 2018 - something old, something newSaturday, 19 May 2018
Photo London seems much better this year, mainly because I am at last able to find my way around the labyrinthine Somerset House without getting lost in photography. Things got off to a good start when I bumped into Annie Leibovitz in reception.... Read more... |
Victorian Giants, National Portrait Gallery review - pioneers of photographyThursday, 15 March 2018
It is a very human crowd at Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography. There are the slightly melancholic portraits of authoritative and bearded male Victorian eminences, among them Darwin, Tennyson, Carlyle and Sir John Herschel. The... Read more... |
Another Kind of Life, Barbican review - intense encounters with marginal livesFriday, 02 March 2018
“I start out as an outsider, usually photographing other outsiders, and then at some point I step over a line and become an insider,” wrote American photographer Bruce Davidson. “I don’t do detached observation.” A large number of the images in... Read more... |
Andreas Gursky, Hayward Gallery review - staggering scale, personal perspectiveTuesday, 06 February 2018
“Let the light in” has been the fundraising slogan for the two-year project to revamp and modernise the Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery, and adjacent Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room. And that is just what has happened, with two triumphs at... Read more... |
Love, Cecil review - poignant, inspiring, and very sadFriday, 01 December 2017
It’s shameful to admit it, but it’s perhaps rather surprising that a film about a fashion photographer and designer should end up being so profoundly moving and inspiring. Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s deft biopic about Cecil Beaton starts off dancing... Read more... |
Highlights from the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2017 - raw emotion, not always humanThursday, 16 November 2017
What does it take to be included in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition? This year 2,423 photographers entered 5,717 images: 2,373 of those photographers are left wondering what it takes to make the grade. Remarks from the... Read more... |
Orhan Pamuk: Istanbul, Memories and the City review – a masterpiece upgradedSunday, 01 October 2017
Along with Balzac’s Paris and Dickens’s London, Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul now ranks as one of the most illustrious author-trademarked cities in literary history. Yet, as Turkey’s Nobel laureate told me during a Southbank Centre interview last month, he... Read more... |
Cinema Through the Eye of Magnum, BBC Four review - moving picturesMonday, 18 September 2017
Magnum was founded just after the war in 1947 as a co-operative that ensured both the quality of its members, and their clout in dealing with the media world. Its longevity is testimony to its success. The original founders were war-hardened photo... Read more... |
Podium nitrate: Conductors at the 2017 PromsMonday, 11 September 2017
What do conductors actually do? It's a question that concert-goers, as well as listeners and viewers of the BBC Proms, often ponder. Conductors may not make a sound, but what they certainly do is put on a performance, the minutiae of which are... Read more... |
Sue Steward 1946-2017: She came, she saw, she salsa'dMonday, 28 August 2017
Sue Steward, who died suddenly last week from a brain haemorrhage, was one of theartsdesk’s most loved members, her free spirit and her double specialism in world music and photography making her an intrinsic asset to this pioneering critics’ site... Read more... |
Teju Cole: Blind Spot review - haunting hybrid of words and imagesSunday, 30 July 2017
As a photographer, Teju Cole has a penchant for the scuffed and distressed surfaces, materials and tools that form rectilinear patterns on construction sites. Opposite a shot of scaffolding, ladders and shadows – all favourite motifs – on the island... Read more... |
