Visual Arts Reviews
Courtauld Impressionists: From Manet to Cézanne review - much loved treasures, seen afreshMonday, 24 September 2018
Heir to one of this country's great textile manufacturing firms, Samuel Courtauld (1876-1947) – highly original in his then unfashionable fascination with the art of his own lifetime – bought some of the best known and best loved paintings now in the public domain. Read more... |
I object, British Museum review - censorship, accidental?Saturday, 22 September 2018
It’s the nature of satire to reflect what it mocks, so as you’d expect from a British Museum exhibition curated by Ian Hislop, I object is a curiously establishment take on material anti-establishmentarianism from BC something-or-other right up to the present day. Read more... |
Renzo Piano, Royal Academy review - worth the effortFriday, 14 September 2018
Architecture is notoriously difficult to present in an accessible way and this survey of Italian architect Renzo Piano, who gave London the Shard, does not solve the problem. Read more... |
h 100 Young Influencers of the Year: Marina Gerner on Russian artThursday, 23 August 2018
On a recent visit to the Royal Academy, I noticed a tall, elegantly dressed man who spent quite some time admiring a square object attached to the wall. I wondered whether to tell him that far from being Russian avant-garde art, which was the theme of the exhibition, it was in fact the temperature and humidity control box. Read more... |
Roderic O’Conor and the Moderns, National Gallery of Ireland review - experiments in Pont-AvenWednesday, 01 August 2018
In the autumn of 1892 Émile Bernard wrote home to his mother that, following the summer decampment to Pont-Aven of artists visiting from Paris and further afield, there remained "some artists here, two of them talented and copying each other. Read more... |
Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, V&A review - appearances aren't everythingTuesday, 03 July 2018
When in 2004 Frida Kahlo’s bedroom – sealed on the command of her husband Diego Rivera for 50 years from her death – was opened, a trove of clothes and personal items was discovered. Read more... |
diep~haven 2018 review - a missed connection?Tuesday, 26 June 2018
The daily car ferry from Newhaven in Sussex to Dieppe in Normandy is an unlikely phenomenon. Neither port is very large; neither region very populous, and the journey sways you along for four contemplative hours. It enjoys the custom of truckers, school parties, and retired caravan-owners. But it also caters for art lovers with time on their hands. Read more... |
The London Mastaba, Serpentine Galleries review - good news for ducks?Thursday, 21 June 2018
It’s not as immersive as New York’s The Gates, 2005, nor as magnificent as Floating Piers, 2016, in Italy’s Lake Iseo – it has also, according to Hyde Park regular Kay, “scared away the ducks,” – but superstar artist Christo’s The London Mastaba looks quite absurdly unreal and is totally free for the public. Read more... |
Hidden Door Festival, Edinburgh - transforming spacesThursday, 07 June 2018
In just five years, what the team behind Hidden Door Festival has achieved is quite remarkable. Read more... |
Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One, Tate Britain review - all in the mindTuesday, 05 June 2018
Not far into Aftermath, Tate Britain’s new exhibition looking at how the experience of World War One shaped artists working in its wake, hangs a group of photographs by Pierre Anthony-Thouret depicting the damage inflicted on Reims. Read more... |
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