modernism
British Design 1948 - 2012: Innovation in the Modern Age, Victoria & Albert MuseumWednesday, 04 April 2012
The V&A has played a blinder. This extraordinary, exciting and unexpected exhibition provides endless trips down memory lane for many and will be a revelation for others. Ignore the clunky title, moving us from the postwar Olympics of 1948 to... Read more... |
Melvyn Bragg on Class and Culture, BBC TwoSaturday, 25 February 2012
The Lord count was perhaps surprisingly high in the first instalment of Melvyn Bragg on Class and Culture. Among the talking heads I counted there was only one who wasn’t a life peer or a “proper” hereditary one, and there was only one who was... Read more... |
Mondrian || Nicholson in Parallel, The Courtauld GalleryMonday, 20 February 2012
Conversations between artists both verbal and visual are the flavour of the month: the big voice of Picasso is almost but not quite drowning out a septet of British artists over at Tate Britain. Now joining the chorus is a fascinating exploration of... 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... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Dramatist Lee HallSunday, 02 October 2011
Like his most famous creation, Billy Elliot, Lee Hall left his native North East to pursue what turned out to be a glittering career in the arts. Although I can’t speak for the fictitious Billy, Hall has certainly never forgotten his working-class... Read more... |
Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990, V&AFriday, 23 September 2011
It took a long time for architects to embrace popular culture. I attended a talk at the Architectural Association in the mid 1970s, when someone (probably the architect Robert Venturi) waxed lyrical about shiny American diners and hot-dog... Read more... |
In the Penal Colony, Young Vic TheatreThursday, 14 July 2011
Kafka is a bit of a stranger to British stages at the moment, but elsewhere he remains a strong presence. In his short parables, as well as in his classic novels such as The Trial, he conveys a deep understanding of the human condition. But while... Read more... |
Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King/ Birtwistle's Secret Theatre, Queen Elizabeth HallFriday, 17 June 2011
"I used to be able to run down these," whispered a wobbly 77-year-old Harrison Birtwistle to friends as he stumbled down the stairs to the Queen Elizabeth Hall stage to take his bow at last night's London Sinfonietta concert (for some inexplicable... Read more... |
The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World, Tate BritainWednesday, 15 June 2011
Who were the Vorticists? Were they significant? Were they any good? And does this little-known British avant-garde movement – if it can be called anything as cohesive - really deserve a major survey at Tate Britain? Many of the group’s paintings... Read more... |
Robin Rhode: Variants, White Cube HoxtonThursday, 09 June 2011
Robin Rhode’s animations are pure pleasure; there’s perfection in their simplicity. They are so perfectly tuned, so light on their feet, that one simply wants to enjoy them; but because they are multilayered, they offer more than momentary pleasure... Read more... |
Fred Sandback, Whitechapel GallerySunday, 29 May 2011
Fred Sandback is one of the great overlooked of the Minimalist movement that developed in the 1960s. Both those words are important – “great” and “overlooked”: his work is genuinely great, and part of its greatness is the way it has overlooking... Read more... |
Cage 99, St George's BristolTuesday, 19 April 2011
John Cage, the focus of an adventurous three-day mini-festival in Bristol, is possibly one of the most influential figures in 20th-century culture. As much a practical philosopher as a composer of note, he made artists, writers and musicians think... Read more... |
