Visual Arts Reviews
Francis Alÿs: Ricochets, Barbican review - fun for the kids, yet I was moved to tearsFriday, 28 June 2024
Belgian artist, Francis Alÿs has filled the Barbican Art Gallery with films of children playing games the world over. Read more... |
Gavin Jantjes: To Be Free, Whitechapel Gallery review - a sweet and sour response to horrific circumstancesWednesday, 19 June 2024
Born in Cape Town in 1948, Gavin Jantjes grew up under apartheid. He openly criticised the regime in his work and, forced into exile, was granted political asylum in Germany in 1973. Read more... |
Laura Aldridge / Andrew Sim, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh review - lightness and joyThursday, 06 June 2024
Two shows at Jupiter Artland, one in a barn, one in a ballroom, showcase two Scottish artists, whose work shares a sense of lightness and joy. The sun was out, there was happiness all round. Laura Aldridge had painted the walls of her barn space a buttercup yellow and applied translucent film to the windows so that to spend time in her bijou show was like being in a solarium. Read more... |
Judy Chicago: Revelations, Serpentine Gallery review - art designed to change the worldFriday, 31 May 2024
Being a successful artist is not Judy Chicago’s primary goal. She abandoned that ambition six decades ago when the Los Angeles art world greeted her with hostility. Now she’s having the last laugh, though. At 84 she is being heaped with accolades, including induction into America’s National Women's Hall of Fame, and is enjoying worldwide celebrity. Read more... |
Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920, Tate Britain review - a triumphTuesday, 28 May 2024
Tate Britain’s Now You See Us could be the most important exhibition you’ll ever see. Spanning 400 hundred years, this overview of women artists in Britain destroys the myth that female talent is an exotic anomaly. Read more... |
Brancusi, Pompidou Centre, Paris review - a sculptor's spiritual quest for form and essenceWednesday, 08 May 2024
One hundred and twenty sculptures, and so much more: the current Brancusi blockbuster at the Centre Pompidou, the first large Paris show of the Romanian-born sculptor’s work since 1995, provides an exhilarating and in many ways definitive perspective on one of the founding figures of 20th century modernism. Read more... |
Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider, Tate Modern review - a missed opportunityTuesday, 30 April 2024
In 1903, Wassily Kandinsky painted a figure in a blue cloak galloping across a landscape on a white horse. Several years later the name of the painting, The Blue Rider (der Blaue Reiter) was adopted by a group of friends who joined forces to exhibit together and disseminate their ideas in a publication of the same name. Read more... |
Eye to Eye: Homage to Ernst Scheidegger, MASI Lugano review - era-defining artist portraitsThursday, 25 April 2024
With a troubled gaze and a lived-in face, the portrait of artist Alberto Giacometti on a withdrawn Swiss banknote is strange currency indeed. One need only think of the confidence and pomp with which national heroes gaze at us from Great British cash. Read more... |
Stephen review - a breathtakingly good first feature by a multi-media artistWednesday, 24 April 2024
Stephen is the first feature film by multi-media artist Melanie Manchot and it’s the best debut film I’ve seen since Steve McQueen’s Hunger. It’s gripping from the first frame to the last; the tension rarely lets up as we watch the main character lying and cheating his way through life as he struggles with addiction and is fleeced by card and loan sharks. In a heart-wrenching scene, his brother Paul (expertly played by Cam Riley) begs him to seek help. Read more... |
Fantastic Machine review - photography's story from one camera to 45 billionSaturday, 20 April 2024
The first photograph was taken nearly 200 years ago in France by Joseph Niépce, and the first picture of a person was taken in Paris by Louis Daguerre in 1838 (main picture). Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Landman, Paramount+ review - once upon a time in the West
Is there only one Taylor Sheridan? His output is so prolific you’d think there must be half a dozen of them. Although little acknowledged in the...
The Dead, ANU, Landmark Productions, MoLI Dublin review - vi...
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All We Imagine as Light review - tender portrait of three wo...
Documentary maker Payal Kapadia scored this year’s Cannes Grand Prix with her debut feature film, All We Imagine as Light, ...
Album: Hibernacula - Three Cane Whale
Since their eponymous 2011 debut, Three Cane Whale have kept it small without losing scale. A trio of Spiro’s Alex Vann, Get The Blessing’s Pete...
Jeff Young: Wild Twin review - a box of tricks
The writer, performer, and lecturer Jeff Young’s latest, Wild Twin, tells – ostensibly – the story of his barefoot, Beat-imitative...
Album: The Innocence Mission - Midwinter Swimmers
A sycamore tree is described to an appaloosa horse before it is mounted to ride off to visit a friend. The thread used for sewing evokes a map...
Witches review - beyond the broomstick, the cat, and the po...
From James I’s campaign to wipe out witchery to the feuding sister sorceresses of The Wizard of Oz and the new film musical ...
EFG London Jazz Festival round-up review - youth, age, and t...
Jazz music crosses, mixes and unites generations, and the 10 concerts I’ve seen at this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival (out of more than 300 in...
First Person: singer-songwriter Sam Amidon on working in Din...
Walking in the morning from my Airbnb along the road in West Kerry...