modernism
Agnes Martin, Tate ModernFriday, 05 June 2015
It's impossible to overstate the reverence accorded the painter Agnes Martin by her fellow artists; in the panoply of American cultural goddesses, she is right up there with Emily Dickinson. Yet she is scarcely known in the wider world, partly... Read more... |
LSO, Eötvös, BarbicanFriday, 24 April 2015
Time was when a Boulez concert with the LSO would have been directed by the man himself, but that is no longer possible. In Peter Eötvös they have the next best thing, a conductor who has known the man and his music for decades, whose listening ear... Read more... |
Sonia Delaunay, Tate ModernWednesday, 15 April 2015
In 1967 when she produced Syncopated Rhythm (main picture), Sonia Delaunay was 82; far from any decline in energy or ambition, the abstract painting shows her in a relaxed and playful mood. Known as The Black Snake for the sinuous black and white... Read more... |
Richard Diebenkorn, Royal AcademyMonday, 16 March 2015
Made an Honorary Royal Academician just a few months before he died, in 1993, it’s taken till now for a posthumous Royal Academy survey to finally bring one of the absolute greats of American postwar painting to a UK audience. Of course, for those... Read more... |
Picasso: Love, Sex and Art, BBC FourThursday, 26 February 2015
So, Picasso’s last words turned out not to be, “Drink to me. Drink to my health. You know I can’t drink anymore” – yes, those famous last words that inspired a Paul McCartney dirge – but were, according to this TV biography looking at Picasso’s... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Moscow: Remembering George CostakisSunday, 22 February 2015
Russia’s national gallery, the Tretyakov, bears the name of its founder Pavel Tretyakov, the 19th-century merchant who bequeathed his huge collection of Russian art to the city of Moscow in 1892. His bust stands proudly overseeing the entrance to... Read more... |
Tutuguri, BBCSO, Nagano, BarbicanSunday, 01 February 2015
If what you wanted to do was go out to the middle of the Mexican desert, invert the Cross and dip it in blood, screaming obscenities all the while, surrounded by a sunburnt band of fellow travellers all off their heads on mescalin, Tutuguri is... Read more... |
Florian Boesch, Roger Vignoles, Wigmore HallFriday, 30 January 2015
Ernst Krenek is probably best remembered nowadays as the composer of Jonny Spielt Auf – the quintessential Zeitoper of Weimar Germany and later the archetype of all that was designated “degenerate” in art by the Nazi regime. And perhaps also as –... Read more... |
Quick! Win tickets for the London Art FairWednesday, 21 January 2015
Whether you’re interested in buying, just looking or attending one of the many talks and events, the London Art Fair is the place to be over the next few days if you’re keen on modern and contemporary British art. theartsdesk has two pairs of... Read more... |
Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915-2015, Whitechapel GalleryFriday, 16 January 2015
From an apparently simple idea stems a very confusing exhibition. Here’s the idea: taking the seminal black square painted by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich as its starting point – in fact, a rectangle, with the small and undated Black... Read more... |
What Lies Beneath: The Secret Life of PaintingsWednesday, 30 July 2014
The doctoring of political images became something of a tradition in the last century, with Stalin, Hitler and Mao all airbrushing their enemies from photographs. The latest infrared technology has revealed that something similar may have happened... Read more... |
Malevich, Tate ModernThursday, 17 July 2014
The year 1915 was a big one for Kazimir Malevich, as it was for the course of modern art. It was the year the Black Square was first exhibited (June 1915 is the likeliest date of the painting’s execution, though Malevich himself dated it to 1913,... Read more... |
