Visual arts
So farewell to the FoundryThursday, 04 February 2010
My abiding memory of The Foundry is being held aloft by my throat by the landlord, Falklands veteran and notorious band manager Alan "Gimpo" Goodrick, as he accused me of stealing a Shirley Bassey album. I had been DJing for a book reading by Mark "... Read more... |
Original Cultures London announcedThursday, 04 February 2010Original Cultures is an artistic collective with bases in the UK, Italy and Japan, dedicated to audiovisual collaborations inspired by street art, graffiti, hip hop and electronic music. It is staging its first London event over the course of a week... Read more... |
Michael Landy: Art Bin, South London GalleryMonday, 01 February 2010
Michael Landy, the artist who destroyed literally everything he owned in his 2001 Artangel project Break Down - birth certificate, Saab, treasured family photos, shirt off his back - finally followed that project up with another exercise in... Read more... |
Photographic Gallery: Niall O'Brien, Art Work SpaceMonday, 01 February 2010
Purists would have it that punk rock was but a brief explosion in first New York then London, and was all but spent by the end of 1977. Irish photographer Niall O'Brien, however, was born in 1979 and has no truck with purism. Instead, taking the... Read more... |
Chris Ofili, Tate BritainThursday, 28 January 2010
Dazzling and surprising, this Tate Britain retrospective by the 1998 Turner Prizewinner Chris Ofili should erase memories of the media sniping about him making money from using the so-called "gimmick" of incorporating elephant turds in his paintings... Read more... |
Interview: Jonathan Meades, Auteur-at-LargeTuesday, 26 January 2010
In his forbidding dark suit and heavy-framed sunglasses, declaiming his artfully wrought texts to camera with the ominous certainty of a hanging judge, Jonathan Meades is one of TV’s most unmistakable presences. While it may be lamentable that we... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Fort Lauderdale: Norman Rockwell, the American FriendSunday, 24 January 2010
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) may be the great idealiser of American smalltown life, but many of his paintings took their cues from Dickens, and they thus have an English tang. None more so than Merrie Christmas (pictured below), which Rockwell... Read more... |
The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters, Royal AcademyFriday, 22 January 2010
This exhibition may claim to reveal the real Van Gogh through his letters, but what of the Sunflowers, the Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear, oh, and Starry Night, with its roiling night sky and dark, mysterious cypress tree? What even of the dizzying... Read more... |
Photographic Gallery: Sony World Photography AwardsWednesday, 20 January 2010
The annual Sony World Photography Awards began in 2007. They showcase the work of both professional and amateur photographers across genres which inclu de journalism, fashion, architecture, advertising, sport and music. This year there were over 60... Read more... |
On the Move: Visualising Action, Estorick CollectionSunday, 17 January 2010
When we look at still images of moving figures what we see is not exclusively determined by what is in front of our eyes but what we already know about the world. If we stopped to think about this, it would seem obvious. We would know, for instance... Read more... |
Princes William and Harry Portrait, National Portrait GalleryFriday, 08 January 2010
The latest official royal portrait, and the first painted portrait featuring the Princes William and Harry, hangs in a small room at the National Portrait Gallery among a selection of royal portraits of the Windsors. There’s the rather quirky one of... Read more... |
theartsdesk an essential site of 2009: BBC Radio 5 LiveFriday, 01 January 2010theartsdesk received a New Year's gift last night when we were given a significant accolade from BBC Radio 5 Live. In Web 2009 with Helen and Olly, the station's podcasters and self-styled "internet obsessives" Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann... Read more... |
