Visual Arts Reviews
Anselm Kiefer: Finnegans Wake, White Cube Bermondsey review - an awe-inspiring showFriday, 21 July 2023
As a child, Anselm Kiefer tells us, in a bombed out German city, he would play in the rubble, creating life out of ruin and destruction. As an artist who is remarkably consistent, without being predictable, he continues to play in the ruins, breathing new life into the detritus of the world as well as his own collection of found objects, waste materials and other elements from which life appears to have been sucked out by time and history. Read more... |
Jean Cooke: Ungardening, Garden Museum review - a cramped show of airy and spacious paintingsTuesday, 11 July 2023
It’s impossible to think about Jean Cooke’s work without taking into account her relationship with her husband, the painter John Bratby, because his controlling personality profoundly affected every aspect of her life. Read more... |
Manchester International Festival exhibitions review - a new arts centre puts Manchester firmly on the cultural mapThursday, 06 July 2023
At 94, Yayoi Kusama is said to be the world’s most popular living artist. People queue for hours to spend a few minutes inside one of her Infinity Rooms, spaces with walls mirrored to create infinite reflections. Read more... |
Brian Clarke - A Great Light, Newport Street Gallery review - a British master proves his worthWednesday, 28 June 2023
The artist Brian Clarke, surely one of the leading British artists of our time, has been all too readily dismissed as a mere craftsman. So much for being an outstanding and highly original painter who’s also done more for contemporary stained glass than any other artist in the world. Read more... |
Carrie Mae Weems: Reflections for Now, Barbican review - going from strength to strength on an epic journeyMonday, 26 June 2023
Carrie Mae Weems is the first live black artist to have a solo show at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, yet she is hardly known here at all. So the Barbican’s retrospective is timely, especially since, at 70, Weems is making her best work yet. Read more... |
Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis, Hayward Gallery review - hope is what we need, but inspiration is a rarityThursday, 22 June 2023
Dear Earth, Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis is a mixed show of artists who address the parlous plight of our planet. The issue obsesses me, so anyone who braves the pitfalls of exploring this difficult subject has my sympathy. Read more... |
Life is More Important than Art, Whitechapel Gallery review - themes of arrival, belonging and departure unite fascinating mixed showWednesday, 21 June 2023
Standing just inside the door of the Whitechapel’s downstairs gallery is a luggage trolley laden with parcels (pictured below, right). Read more... |
Capturing the Moment, Tate Modern review - the glorious power of paintingThursday, 15 June 2023
Billed as “a journey through painting and photography”, Capturing the Moment reveals many ways in which artists have responded to photography – either by taking up the camera themselves, as did Candida Höffer, Andreas Gursky, Louise Lawler and Thomas Struth, or by making some superb paintings. Read more... |
Carey Young: Appearance, Modern Art Oxford review - in the eyes of the lawThursday, 15 June 2023
A visitor to the city wishes to gain access to the law, but a gatekeeper blocks his entrance. The man petitions this imposing figure, who is only one of a series of legal bouncers. He is told there is gate after gate. He sits, he waits, he lies down, and eventually he expires. But not before making a close study of this implacable representative of the law. He even notes the fleas in the gatekeeper’s collar. Read more... |
Matter as Actor, Lisson Gallery review - living in a material worldFriday, 09 June 2023
It is fitting that I watch Otobong Nkanga’s performance on a stranger’s smartphone screen. Solid Maneuvers, 2015, is about the extraction of precious resources from the Namibian landscape. It is about the long-term devastation humans wreak on the natural world and the equally devastating consequences nature revisits on us.
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