Visual Arts Reviews
David Hockney / Michael Armitage, Royal Academy review - painting with an iPad vs brushes and paintSaturday, 22 May 2021
David Hockney has a new toy, an app designed specially for him that allows him to work on an iPad with fine brushes. He spent the first five months of lockdown In Normandy making daily records of the coming of spring; the results are displayed in a large show at the Royal Academy (★★). Read more... |
Eileen Agar, Whitechapel Gallery review - a free spirit to the endThursday, 20 May 2021
Eileen Agar was the only woman included in the International Surrealist Exhibition of 1936, which introduced London to artists like Salvador Dali and Max Ernst. The Surrealists were exploring the creative potential of chance, chaos and the irrational which they saw as the feminine principle, yet they didn’t welcome women artists into their group. Read more... |
Turner's Modern World, Tate Britain review - the universal artistThursday, 13 May 2021
When Turner’s Modern World opened at Tate Britain last autumn only to close again days later, we might have felt then an echo of sensations and sentiments powerfully expressed in the exhibition itself. Read more... |
Points of Departure, Brighton Festival 2021 review - Ray Lee's harbour-based sound art impressesFriday, 07 May 2021
They stand in a row, nine of them, in a long, strange corridor between rows of stacked, palleted, planked wood and the red brick wall of an endless warehouse. Nine tripods, each two humans high, with a spinning helicopter head, double-ended by conical horns that emanate a gentle angelic howling or lower end drone-hums. Read more... |
Rachel Whiteread: Internal Objects, Gagosian Gallery review - apocalyptic shedsThursday, 06 May 2021
Sheds have flourished in lockdown: they’ve always been places to escape to and in the past year, when spruced up as home offices, even more so. They’re also emblems of isolation. Read more... |
This is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist, Netflix - the last word (for now)Thursday, 08 April 2021
It’s no surprise that 30 years on, the individuals most closely connected to the world’s biggest art heist are showing their age. Read more... |
Prix Pictet: Confinement review - a year in photographsThursday, 18 March 2021
Sustainability and the environment are watchwords for the Prix Pictet, the international photography prize now in its ninth cycle. Read more... |
Pioneering Women, Oxford Ceramics Gallery online review - domestic pleasuresWednesday, 03 March 2021
Pioneering is an attractive adjective in this context, alerting the spectator to what has been, over the past half century, an extraordinary body of contemporary ceramics produced by women. Read more... |
Best of 2020: Visual ArtsTuesday, 29 December 2020
Unhappy as it is to be ending the year with museums and galleries closed, 2020 has had its triumphs, and there is plenty to look forward to in 2021. Read more... |
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Tate Britain review - enigmatic figures full of lifeWednesday, 16 December 2020
A person in a brown polo neck turns away, looking down (pictured below right). The encounter feels really intimate; we are almost breathing down this beautiful neck and exquisitely painted ear. Yet the subject retains their privacy; you can’t even be sure if this is a man or a woman. Read more... |
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