Visual arts
Modern Couples, Barbican review - an absurdly ambitious survey of artist loversSaturday, 13 October 2018
What an ambitious project! Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avant-garde looks at over 40 couples or, in some cases, trios whose love galvanised them into creative activity either individually or in collaboration.The best thing about the... Read more... |
Mantegna and Bellini, National Gallery review - curated for curatorsMonday, 08 October 2018
Pitched as “a tale of two artists”, the National Gallery’s big autumn show promises a history woven in shades of friendship and rivalry, marriage and family, privilege and hard graft. Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini were brothers-in-law,... Read more... |
Elmgreen & Dragset, Whitechapel Gallery review – when is a door not a door ?Saturday, 06 October 2018
A whiff of chlorine hits you as you open the door of the Whitechapel Gallery. Its the smell of public baths, and inside is a derelict swimming pool with nothing in it but dead leaves and piles of brick dust. Damp walls, peeling paint and cracked... Read more... |
The Everyday and the Extraordinary, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne review - the ordinary made strangeThursday, 04 October 2018
There’s a building site outside the Towner Art Gallery and a cement mixer seems to have strayed over the threshold into the foyer. This specimen (pictured below right) no longer produces cement, though. David Batchelor has transformed it into an... Read more... |
Oceania, Royal Academy review - magnificent encountersTuesday, 02 October 2018
In the video, Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner smiles shyly before beginning. As she speaks, her voice gains conviction, momentum, power. Her poem tells of the Marshall Islands inhabitants, a “proud people toasted dark brown”, and a constellation of islands... Read more... |
Space Shifters, Hayward Gallery review - seeing is not always believingFriday, 28 September 2018
There are some wonderful things in Space Shifters, the Hayward Gallery’s autumn exhibition. The selection of work plays with one’s perceptions of space and everything in it. You look through, round or over these sculptures and installations rather... Read more... |
Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt, V&A review - gaming for allThursday, 27 September 2018
Design/Play/Disrupt at the V&A covers a wide variety of games that are spearheading the gaming world at the moment. It takes a closer look at eight of the most innovative and different games that have changed the world of gaming in the last five... Read more... |
Turner Prize 2018, Tate Britain review - a shortlist dominated by political issuesTuesday, 25 September 2018
I’ve just spent four hours in the Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain. The shortlisted artists all show films or videos, which means that you either stay for the duration or make the decision to walk away, which feels disrespectful. For unlike... Read more... |
Courtauld Impressionists: From Manet to Cézanne review - much loved treasures, seen afreshMonday, 24 September 2018
Heir to one of this country's great textile manufacturing firms, Samuel Courtauld (1876-1947) – highly original in his then unfashionable fascination with the art of his own lifetime – bought some of the best known and best loved paintings now... Read more... |
I object, British Museum review - censorship, accidental?Saturday, 22 September 2018
It’s the nature of satire to reflect what it mocks, so as you’d expect from a British Museum exhibition curated by Ian Hislop, I object is a curiously establishment take on material anti-establishmentarianism from BC something-or-other right up to... Read more... |
Renzo Piano, Royal Academy review - worth the effortFriday, 14 September 2018
Architecture is notoriously difficult to present in an accessible way and this survey of Italian architect Renzo Piano, who gave London the Shard, does not solve the problem. With 16 tables arranged in rows over two rooms, the Royal Academy show... Read more... |
h 100 Awards: Art, Design and Craft - making art publicWednesday, 29 August 2018
This year’s nominees represent the wealth of innovative activity that makes British art, craft and design fresh and exciting. Artists and makers dominate the shortlist, and rightly so, but curators, an educator, and a journalist reflect the... Read more... |
