Visual Arts Reviews
Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer, National Portrait GalleryMonday, 14 March 2011
What ever happened to Ida Kar? If the question is not quite on the level of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, perhaps the answer is more interesting, if less melodramatic. Ida Kar - born Ida Karamian in Russia of Armenian parents, resident of Cairo, Alexandria, Paris and Soho, the first photographer to be given a retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in its heyday under that curator of genius Bryan Robertson – is now, all too often, known as “Ida Who?” even by those who should... Read more...
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Nancy Spero & Marcus Coates, Serpentine GallerySunday, 13 March 2011
A maypole greets you on entry to the Serpentine Gallery; don’t expect a cheery celebration of spring, though. Nancy Spero’s installation Maypole: Take No Prisoners II (2008) is a scream of rage against violence and its hapless victims. Dangling from coloured ribbons, dozens of decapitated heads hang in the air like an explosion of shrapnel. Mouths gape open in pain and terror - or is it hatred? One can’t be sure, since some seem to be spitting venom from bloody tongues as though,... Read more... |
Antoine Watteau, Royal Academy and Wallace CollectionFriday, 11 March 2011
As a young man searching for a way to make a living in Paris, Antoine Watteau briefly tried his hand at engraving fashion plates. He seems to have had a natural affinity for cloth and drew its folds and creases with such apparent ease that you can almost feel the slipperiness of satin and hear the rustle of taffeta as it moves with the body. This was just as well, since he didn’t attend the Academy where students did life drawing and learned anatomy. Read more... |
Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World, British MuseumThursday, 10 March 2011
I’m in an exhibition of ancient artefacts from Afghanistan, all from the National Museum at Kabul, but I may well have stumbled into the wrong room at the British Museum. I could be in the BM’s Hellenic section of Greek art, or, taking a few steps to my left, the Egyptian rooms. Read more... |
Picasso in Paris 1900-1907, Van Gogh Museum, AmsterdamThursday, 10 March 2011
An artist as inventive and as protean as Picasso, and one who ceaselessly absorbed influences throughout his life, will inevitably present an ever-changing face to the world. Hence, we have an apparently inexhaustible supply of exhibitions devoted to him. Read more... |
Mona Hatoum: Bunker, White Cube Mason's YardWednesday, 02 March 2011
The latest exhibition from Beirut-born, sometime Turner Prize-nominee Mona Hatoum – best known for sending a camera through her inner tubes and projecting the results – explores themes of displacement and geographical and political tension. I know this because since I signed up to review it a fortnight ago, invites and reminders concerning this exhibition "exploring themes of displacement and geographical and political tension" have been hitting my mailbox with hectoring insistence. Read more... |
An American Experiment: George Bellows and the Ashcan Painters, National GalleryTuesday, 01 March 2011
The National Gallery has done it again: a small but perfectly formed exhibition in their little Room 1, now a by-word for intelligent show-making. Something new, something revelatory, something profoundly beautiful – what more can the gallery-goer ask? The Ashcan School is not widely known outside the USA, and I can think of no better introduction than this dozen-canvas-strong showing of some of the highlights (and, it must be admitted, a couple of low-lights as well). Read more... |
Hoppé Portraits: Society, Studio and Street, National Portrait GalleryWednesday, 23 February 2011
If you’ve seen pictures of the Ballets Russes, then you’ve seen Hoppé photographs. But then, if you’ve seen any society pictures from the 1920s and 1930s, then you’ve seen Hoppé. And famous writers. In fact, for portrait photography in Britain between the World Wars, you can pretty well bet the photo is Hoppé’s. But what's so good about this new exhibition is that it shows a side to Hoppé that is much less well-known - the street-view. And these photographs are thrilling, in form as... Read more... |
Jan Gossaert’s Renaissance, National GalleryTuesday, 22 February 2011
Jan, or Janin? Gossart, or Gossaert? Or Mabuse? After a mere five centuries, we haven’t settled on a name quite yet (even for this exhibition: at the Metropolitan Museum, the same show spelt it “Gossart”). We don’t know where he was born, although Maubeuge, then in Hainault, now in France, is the best guess, hence “Mabuse”. His birth date too is a mystery: the Grove Dictionary of Art suggests 1478, while the National Gallery just shrugs and gives us “active 1503”. What is in... Read more... |
Louise Bourgeois & Tracey Emin, Do Not Abandon Me, Hauser & WirthThursday, 17 February 2011
Louise Bourgeois died last year at nearly 100, a revered figure: survivor of the Surrealist movement into the 21st century, a pioneer of autobiographical expression, whose fame came only late in life. Read more... |
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