Visual arts
theartsdesk in Florence: Hating the Sin, Loving the SinnerSunday, 28 October 2012
Perhaps the longest-lasting, the oddest – and almost certainly the most gratuitous – battle still busy raging with its roots in the ideological conflicts of the past century is the one regarding the artistic output of Italy’s engagement with Fascism... Read more... |
The Shape of Time, Henry Moore InstituteThursday, 25 October 20121913 was an important year for modern art in Europe. It was theyear of Boccioni's Continuity of Forms in Space and Duchamp's Bicycle Whee l, as well as Diaghilev's production of The Rite of Spring. This exhibitio n explores the key concepts that... Read more... |
Hollywood Costume, Victoria & Albert MuseumThursday, 25 October 2012A major exhibition exploring the central role costume design pl ays in cinema storytelling. Bringing together over 100 of the most iconic m ovie costumes from across a century of film-making, it includes the costum es and accessories made famous by... Read more... |
Kafou: Haiti, Art and Vodou, Nottingham ContemporaryThursday, 25 October 2012
I’ve rarely come across an exhibition as loaded with context as this one. Voodoo – or Vodou, as the show has it – is a massively complex and contested phenomenon, from the pin-sticking and zombies of legend and fantasy to the no-less colourful... Read more... |
Painting the Queen: A Portrait of Her Majesty, BBC FourWednesday, 24 October 2012
Has there ever been a successful portrait of the Queen? Not a photograph - there are been plenty of those (with its delicious air of ambivalence, Thomas Struth’s portrait of the Queen with Prince Philip stiffly occupying two ends of a sofa at... Read more... |
Hollywood Costume, Victoria & Albert MuseumSunday, 21 October 2012
Going to the movies will never be quite the same again, as the Victoria & Albert illuminates the work of the costume designers for anybody who has ever been seduced by the world of the cinema, which I guess means all of us. This anthology is a... Read more... |
FriezeMonday, 15 October 2012Read more... |
Richard Hamilton: The Late Works, National GallerySunday, 14 October 2012
This small, posthumous exhibition illuminates Richard Hamilton’s life-long engagement with both the art of the past and the latest techniques and technological possibilities available to visual artists in the 21st century. He played with photography... Read more... |
Frieze Masters Art Fair, Regent's ParkSaturday, 13 October 2012
Things have come to a pretty pass when the old is a breath of fresh air and the new just old hat, but the Frieze Masters art fair in Regent's Park, which closes this weekend, is just that. New sister to Frieze London, which features art since 2000,... Read more... |
William Klein + Daido Moriyama, Tate ModernThursday, 11 October 2012
William Klein’s exhibition opens with Broadway by Light (1958), a celluloid elegy to advertising made in the days before neon. Myriad bulbs flash the names of brands like Coca Cola, Camel, Budweiser and Pepsi across New York’s night sky. Silhouetted... Read more... |
Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes, Pace GalleryWednesday, 10 October 2012
Half-way through Death in Venice, Thomas Mann's tragic hero, Aschenbach, settles down on a beach to gaze out to the sea to "take shelter from the demanding diversity of phenomena in the bosom of boundless simplicity". Aschenbach is suddenly returned... Read more... |
The Company of Strangers: How the Royal Academy Was FoundedTuesday, 09 October 2012
Since becoming Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts almost exactly five years ago, I have become increasingly interested in why it was established. In particular, I almost inevitably got interested in the so-called Laws which... Read more... |
