Visual arts
theartsdesk Q&A: Artist Anish KapoorSaturday, 07 November 2009
The sculptor Anish Kapoor (b. 1954), RA, CBE, won the Turner Prize in 1990. His public works are characterised by their gigantic scale and ambition. In the UK he is probably best known for Marsyas (2002), the viscerally red “ear trumpet” that... Read more... |
Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting, Hayward GalleryFriday, 06 November 2009
West Coast pop art always was a poor relation to the world-beating New York original. Beside the Big Apple titans – Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg – LA painters such as Ed Ruscha, Robert Irwin and John Altoon remained... Read more... |
Art Gallery: Ed RuschaFriday, 06 November 2009
Half a century of Ed Ruscha's paintings are on show at the Hayward Gallery, London. Mark Hudson reviews elsewhere in theartsdesk the display of Los Angeles's most famous painter, "an aspect of American art about which we’ve remained remarkably... Read more... |
Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2009, National Portrait GalleryFriday, 06 November 2009
Does a winning photograph jump out at you? Sure, we can talk earnestly of composition, an interesting subject, a telling juxtaposition, or the abstract interplay of colour, texture and light. But perhaps more than any other visual art form, what... Read more... |
Wunderbar FestivalThursday, 05 November 2009
With the launch of the Wunderbar Featival this week, Newcastle continues to demonstrate just what 2008’s European Capital of Culture judges missed when they anointed Liverpool. The 10-day celebration, which starts tomorrow, is international in... Read more... |
Art Gallery: The Sacred Made RealMonday, 02 November 2009
Mark Hudson reviews on another page the National Gallery's exhibition of 17th-century Spanish sculpture and art, The Sacred Made Real, which he describes as "in some ways the most contemporary exhibition in London". Here are some of the artworks on... Read more... |
Art Gallery: Romuald HazouméThursday, 29 October 2009An extensive selection is shown here of the work of Romuald Hazoumé, the Benin contemporary artist whose iconic masks made from petrol canisters dumped around his poverty-stricken homeland of Benin launched his international career. A major... Read more... |
A Gold Medal for the Cultural Olympiad?Monday, 26 October 2009Worries that London 2012’s Cultural Olympiad had fallen at the first hurdle – as it seemed when the proposed Olympic Friend-ship, carrying a cargo of British artists and philosophers around the world, was scrapped – can be assuaged. The organisers... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Paris: Surrealist BluesSunday, 25 October 2009
I've been having rather a surreal autumn here in Paris. First, I was lucky enough to catch the last day of Une semaine de bonté at the Musée d'Orsay, where the original collages were on display in five colour-coded chambers. For those not in the... Read more... |
Wild Thing: Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska, Gill, Royal AcademyFriday, 23 October 2009By all accounts Eric Gill had a shocking private life. When it was revealed in Fiona MacCarthy’s biography, published 20 years ago, that he’d embarked on an adult incestuous relationship with not only both his of sisters but, later, with two of his... Read more... |
Drawing Attention, Dulwich Picture GalleryThursday, 22 October 2009
The first thing to say about Drawing Attention is that its title decidedly undersells the scope of this compelling and unpredictable exhibition, which spans five centuries and includes 100 works from the Art Gallery of Ontario’s collection. Most of... Read more... |
theartsdesk in New York: Extreme BlakeSunday, 18 October 2009Outwardly the Morgan Library & Museum is a citadel of sedateness - inside it may be the locus of turbulence. Thirteen years ago I walked around one of the rooms with the actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, on whom I was writing a profile. She was then... Read more... |
