fri 03/05/2024

Visual Arts Features

theartsdesk in the Hamptons: The $26 Million Barn

Markie Robson-Scott

There’s never a good day for traffic in the Hamptons, and a Friday in August takes the biscuit. The Montauk Highway, also known as Route 27, was bumper to bumper on the way to the Parrish Art Museum, recently relocated from nearby Southampton village to an exciting new building in the Watermill area.

Read more...

Opinion: Let's put a brake on this facile culture of 'celebration'

Fisun Güner

What happens when art is everywhere? Does it become wallpaper? Visual white noise?

Read more...

theartsdesk in Mozambique: Maputo Stories

Thembi Mutch

The capital of Mozambique pulls no punches. Parked at the old airport among sheaves of wild grass are old MiG fighter planes, as sculpturally beautiful as the massive monument made from decommissioned weapons a few hundred metres away. The new airport, a multi-million pound effort completed last year with significant Chinese help, has Dom Perignon champagne for $230 a bottle. That’s twice the national annual wage. 

Read more...

Art: theartsdesk at Manchester International Festival 2013

Fisun Güner

I’m watching someone with a mic pacing the linking bridge on the second floor of the Arndale Shopping Centre. He’s repeating the same phrase over and over again, which he’ll do for the next 20 or so minutes. “We’re souls refreshed,” I think it is. Nearby, sitting cross-legged, Lotus fashion, is a girl who, like the man with the mic, is wearing white cotton gloves.  In front of her are three stones, painted white, on a white handkerchief, and two hymnals.

Read more...

theartsdesk in Copenhagen: Degas' Method, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Fisun Güner

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is famous for its collection of antiquities: Egyptian carvings, Greek statues and Roman sculpture form the heart of its collection. Indeed, its collection of Roman portrait busts are among the finest in the world. But the 19th century also has a strong sculptural presence.

Read more...

theartsdesk in Istanbul: Art pours out of Gezi Park

Sebastian Merrick

I can’t wait to check out Istanbul’s galleries in a couple of years. Already endowed with an exploding arts and design scene, with Istanbul Modern in its unique location hanging over the Bosphorus, the retrospectively-looking Santral half integrated into an Ottoman power plant, and the area around Tophane sprouting art boutiques and design outlets like nobody’s business, its creative output has just been given a huge boost.

Read more...

theartsdesk in Warsaw: A New Jewish Museum

Simon Broughton

The Ghetto Heroes Square in the Muranow district of Warsaw is a bleak place surrounded by drab apartment blocks. But at its centre there’s now a new building that attracted over 15,000 visitors in the first two days of its opening on 20 and 21 April, the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. It’s particularly remarkable as the building doesn’t yet have any exhibits on show.

Read more...

theartsdesk in Prague: Two Faces of Mucha

Simon Broughton

The work of Alphons Mucha (1860-1939) is immediately identifiable with its decorative flowers, delicate colours and wide-eyed women staring seductively at the viewer. He was one of the pioneers of art nouveau and the art of advertising. In Prague an exhibition recently opened which is packing them in at the glorious art nouveau Obecni Dům (Municipal House) in the centre of the city.

Read more...

theartsdesk in Austin, Texas: The Library with Everything

Markie Robson-Scott

April in Austin means South by South West is over, but the city’s permanent attractions remain: Torchy’s tacos, bats under Congress bridge, grackles (the most in-your-face birds ever) as well several cultural destinations on the University of Texas’s huge, pristine campus. Everything really is bigger in Texas, and that includes literary archives.

Read more...

Turner Prize 2013 shortlist: Is David Shrigley an artist? and other thoughts

Fisun Güner

“Is David Shrigley an artist?,” a journalist asked at Tate Britain’s Turner Prize shortlist announcement this morning. Well, many would say so, though The Arts Desk critic Judith Flanders  had her own reservations after seeing his Hayward Gallery show, Brain Activity, for which he was nominated. “Just because the work’s funny, doesn’t mean it’s not serious”, was the short-shrift response of Tate Britain director and chair of judges Penelope Curtis.

Read more...

Pages

latest in today

CVC, Concorde 2, Brighton review - they have the songs and t...

The joy of CVC, when they catch fire, is the zing of gatecrashing a gang of cheeky, very individual personalities having their own private party....

Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - meeting a...

Kahchun Wong, the Hallé’s principal conductor from the coming autumn season, presided in the Bridgewater Hall for the first time yesterday since...

Extract: Pariah Genius by Iain Sinclair

Iain Sinclair is a writer, film-maker, and psychogeographer extraordinaire. He began his career in the poetic avant-garde of the Sixties and...

Nezouh review - seeking magic in a war

The 21st century learnt afresh about the reality of carpet-bombed cities thanks to the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011. And the...

Album: Dua Lipa - Radical Optimism

This album has a lot to live up to. Its predecessor Future Nostalgia came along just as the Covid crisis was properly kicking...

Laughing Boy, Jermyn Street Theatre review - impassioned agi...

On the morning of the press show of Laughing Boy, the BBC news website’s top story was about the abuse of children with learning...

Guildhall School Gold Medal 2024, Barbican review - quirky-w...

While the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra were performing Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie – weirdly, despite its size...

Album: Sia - Reasonable Woman

Sia has well and truly stepped into her power. Gone are the days of releasing songs that were pitched to megastars but turned down (“This Is...

Minority Report, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre review - ill-judg...

Towards the end of David Haig’s new adaptation of Philip...

Mitski, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - cool and quirky, yet...

It was her 2018 album Be the Cowboy which saw Mitski propelled to stardom status. Laurel Hell, which followed in 2022...