contemporary art
Gillian Wearing, Whitechapel GalleryWednesday, 28 March 2012
The first major retrospective of the videos, photographs and sculptures of Gillian Wearing is a deeply disturbing experience. Her videos can be just a few minutes, or as long as an hour, but are not sequential narratives. They can be dipped in and... Read more... |
Mixed Media, Haunch of VenisonMonday, 05 March 2012
Group shows can be strained: the rubric can be so narrow that it has to be stretched to accommodate the artists at hand. That is one reason why Haunch of Venison's new show, Mixed Media, is so pleasing: it features contemporary sculpture with an... Read more... |
David Hockney: The Art of Seeing, BBC TwoTuesday, 28 February 2012
It’s hard to imagine a bad documentary on David Hockney. Hockney always gives good Hockney: the quotable sentences come thick and fast; his enthusiasm for his craft is never less than exhilarating, and like that other great British artist of his... Read more... |
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, Royal AcademyWednesday, 18 January 2012
These are, we are told, David Hockney's landscape works, and in that they depict the outdoors - early Grand Canyons and LA scenes, Yorkshire from the Nineties to now - that is correct. As a description, however, it comes nowhere near encapsulating... Read more... |
Survivor, Hofesh Shechter & Anthony Gormley, Barbican TheatreFriday, 13 January 2012
Empty vessels make the most noise. That pithy old aphorism floated into my head a scant few minutes into the much-heralded new work by the undoubtedly talented, but here way off-beam, Hofesh Shechter. And again, a few minutes later. And again, and... Read more... |
2011: Unlovely Love Stories and Unerotic Erotic TalesWednesday, 28 December 2011
While I'm still learning to disentangle my mezzo from my Meistersinger, I enjoyed a lot of the opera on offer in London this year, especially at English National Opera. Parsifal was perfect and Rameau's Castor and Pollux, while probably a little too... Read more... |
Damien Hirst's spots go globalSaturday, 17 December 2011
Brace yourselves for pure Damien Hirst madness next year. As well as Tate Modern’s retrospective survey opening in April, there will be a “worldwide” retrospective of Hirst’s spot paintings opening next month.The Gagosian Gallery will be... Read more... |
Anselm Kiefer: Il Mistero delle Cattedrali, White Cube BermondseyTuesday, 13 December 2011
That Anselm Kiefer is one of the great elder statesmen of contemporary art goes without saying. His work’s precise relevance to now is less clear. In the early 1980s, when he sprang to fame as part of the New Image Painting phenomenon (with Schnabel... Read more... |
Turner Prize is won for the third time in a row by a Scottish artistTuesday, 06 December 2011
George Shaw might have been the popular favourite, but it was Martin Boyce who carried the vote to win this year’s Turner Prize. The 44-year-old artist from Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, follows fast on the heels of two fellow Scots: Susan Philipsz... Read more... |
George Condo: Mental States, Hayward Gallery/ Drawings, Sprüth Magers LondonSunday, 30 October 2011
The easiest mistake to make in appreciating George Condo would be to assume that his manic style reflects a manic creation or a manic practice. Some of Condo's paintings and drawings, with their childlike loops and gurning, disfigured faces, look... Read more... |
Greece showers Soviet art riches on LondonFriday, 28 October 2011
There’s a lot of Soviet art about at the moment – the excellent show that opens this Saturday at the Royal Academy has Constructivist and Suprematist paintings and drawings loaned by the George Costakis Collection in Thessaloniki. Now, at Annely... Read more... |
Frieze Art Fair 2011: Emotion under the IronyThursday, 13 October 2011
Every year the art lovers of the world assemble in London and burn themselves out during Frieze Week - the fairs, the galleries, the parties - and (if they're anything like me) they vow to take it a bit easier next year. It never happens. The entire... Read more... |
