Visual arts
Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way, Turner Contemporary review - a feedback loop of musical unionSaturday, 18 February 2023
It’s 1986, and a young Sonia Boyce (main picture) speaks to poet and sculptor, Pitika Ntuli, about the "perpetual struggle to be heard and appreciated" as a Black woman who is an artist. "I’m here, you can’t wish me away," she responds with... Read more... |
Peter Doig, Courtauld Gallery review - the good, the bad and the unfinishedThursday, 16 February 2023
I once gave Peter Doig a tutorial, when he was a student at Chelsea College of Art. He had little to say about his strange images and I came away feeling I’d seen something unique, but was unable to tell if he was a very good painter or a very bad... Read more... |
Action Gesture Paint, Whitechapel Gallery review - a revelation and an inspirationTuesday, 14 February 2023
It’s not often that an exhibition makes me cry, but then it’s not often that a show reveals the degree to which we have been duped. Action Gesture Paint includes the work of some 80 women, half of whom I’d never heard of. Given that I’ve been a... Read more... |
Les Rencontres de Bamako, Mali review - imagining another futureThursday, 09 February 2023
During morning and evening rush hour, Bamako seizes up under the pressure of all the cars, motorbikes, trucks and buses, bringing the three bridges over the Niger River to a standstill and testing Mali’s reputation for patience and humour to its... Read more... |
Fabienne Verdier, The Song of the Stars (Le chant des étoiles), Musée Unterlinden, Colmar review - sacred and contemporary art in dialogueTuesday, 07 February 2023
I have wanted to visit the Musée Unterlinden in Colmar for many years: the home of Matthias Grünewald’s masterpiece, the Isenheim Altarpiece (1512-1516), one of the great works of North European religious art. The opportunity finally arose in an... Read more... |
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed review - superb documentary about a campaigning artistFriday, 27 January 2023
A film telling just the story of photographer Nan Goldin’s campaign against Purdue Pharmacy would have been worth the ticket price alone.But Laura Poitras’s documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed offers so much more. It moves between two... Read more... |
Spain and the Hispanic World, Royal Academy review - a monumental surveyWednesday, 25 January 2023
Treasures from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library are displayed as a monumental survey of Spanish art from Antiquity to the 20th century. The new exhibition stands as testament to the extraordinary vision of its founder, Archer M Huntington.... Read more... |
Best of 2022: Visual ArtsWednesday, 28 December 2022
Have you noticed how exhibitions now seem to go on for ever and ever? Three months seems to be the norm, but five months is not unknown. Ever wondered why? In terms of time and money, mounting a major exhibition is incredibly expensive, of course.... Read more... |
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Tate Modern review - a forest of huge and imposing presencesFriday, 18 November 2022
First off, I must confess that fibre or textile art makes me queasy. I don’t know why, but all that threading, knotting, twisting, coiling and winding gives me the creeps. So it’s all the more extraordinary that I was blown away by Magdalena... Read more... |
Things, Musée du Louvre, Paris review - the still life brought aliveTuesday, 15 November 2022
Only a Eurostar day-trip away, at least from London, the Louvre is hosting an exceptional exhibition, which makes the journey to Paris well worthwhile. Things – A History of Still Life (Les choses – une histoire de la nature morte) is one of those... Read more... |
Donna Fleming: Apocalypse, The Pie Factory, Margate review - personal passions and intense feelingsMonday, 14 November 2022
Donna Fleming’s exhibition at the Pie Factory Gallery in Margate is called Apocalypse, which is confusing because it has nothing to do with the end of the world. Fleming does not even watch the news because she “does not want to think about... Read more... |
Making Modernism, Royal Academy review - a welcome if confusing intro to seven lesser known artistsSaturday, 12 November 2022
The Royal Academy’s Making Modernism is a welcome introduction to seven women painters working in Germany at the beginning of the last century. It wouldn’t surprise me if you’d never heard of Gabriele Münter, Marianne Werefkin and Paula Modersohn-... Read more... |
