Visual arts
Marina Vaizey
Dogs, horses, cows, sheep, goats and pigs are the creatures that, however minuscule in stature, take pride of place in the fascinating exhibition of Thomas Gainsborough’s imaginary landscapes at the Holburne in Bath, an ideal complement to the nine major Gainsborough portraits in their British picture gallery.Surprisingly for one of the most prominent portrait-painters in all of British art, Gainsborough's animals, lovingly portrayed, their body language based on acute observation, dominate their human counterparts in these landscapes, who are more or less rural stereotypes.The half-dozen Read more ...
josh.spero
Art about art is one of my favourite kinds of art. Paintings, drawings, sculptures, films - works of art which talk about what art is, what the image is, what art can represent and what it can't - all appeal. It is not just a picture of some prostitutes and some African masks - it is Les demoiselles d'Avignon by Picasso and it blows apart the boundaries of painting by cramming three dimensions into two. And then there is Frank Stella, in a new survey of his career at Haunch of Venison, the ultimate modern artist-about-art - and I'm left cold.I know that Stella is someone contemporary art Read more ...
Sarah Kent
"The sheer adventure and life of the touch is the only relevancy," wrote Barry Flanagan in his graduation thesis for St Martin’s School of Art in 1966. "I must allow my hand to touch and feel, my eyes to look and see, my tongue to lick and taste, my nose to sniff and smell, my ears to listen and hear."Clearly a sensualist, his approach to art-making was exploratory; a fascination with materials and processes led to objects whose forms were arrived at through simple actions that are clearly visible in the end product. The first sculptures in this exhibition at Tate Britain are made from sand. Read more ...
fisun.guner
A 50th birthday is a landmark occasion. One has plenty to look back on, whilst still having much to look forward to. Plus there’s all that life experience to draw on. What’s not to feel positive about? In the case of a gallery that’s built up a remarkable reputation as an innovative space for contemporary art outside London, sheer staying power is surely to be cheered and celebrated – "hear hear" for the next 50 years, and so forth.But it’s also worth asking whether middle age hasn’t precipitated some kind of quiet crisis for Bristol's Arnolfini gallery. It’s not fair, of course, to judge on Read more ...