sat 28/06/2025

Photography

Production Gallery: The Royal Ballet's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Charlotte MacMillan took photographs of the first new full-length ballet at The Royal Ballet for 16 years, Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which premiered last night at the Royal Opera House. Designs are by Bob Crowley,...

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Hoppé Portraits: Society, Studio and Street, National Portrait Gallery

British Museum Underground Station: 'a terrific evocation of a lost world'

If you’ve seen pictures of the Ballets Russes, then you’ve seen Hoppé photographs. But then, if you’ve seen any society pictures from the 1920s and 1930s, then you’ve seen Hoppé. And famous writers. In fact, for portrait photography in Britain...

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Judge of major art prize in intimate relationship with winner

Abbie Trayler-Smith's 'Untitled', from her series 'Childhood Obesity', was not among the strongest works in the competition

We usually leave art award controversies to the Turner Prize at Tate Britain. So it’s a surprise to hear that the National Portrait Gallery has stepped up to the plate with their annual Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. And if you’ve...

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theartsdesk Guide to Valentine's Day

Whether it’s consolation, stimulation, or just some old-fashioned romance you’re after this Valentine’s Day, theartsdesk’s team of writers (with a little help from a certain Bard from Stratford) have got it covered. Exhibitions to stir the heart,...

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Photo Gallery: The Best View of Heaven is From Hell

Graffiti in Helmand: One of ex-soldier Bran Symondson's Afghan photographs taken in 2010

"There's a similarity between being a soldier and a photographer. They are both looking intensely for the moment." Bran Symondson would know. He served with the British Army in Afghanistan before returning to document the world of the Afghan...

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Robert Mapplethorpe, Alison Jacques Gallery

Peter Reed, clenching his buttocks, by Robert Mapplethorpe

The first thing to make clear is that Robert Mapplethorpe, notorious for his photograph of himself with a bullwhip up his arse, is not really a photographer: he is a sculptor who works in the medium of photography. What else can explain the...

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Gabriel Orozco, Tate Modern

The show opens with his iconic 1991 piece, My Hands are My Heart, a double photograph of Orozco’s naked torso. In the first photograph his hands clutch a hidden object at chest-height; in the second the hands splay open to present to the viewer a...

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Cindy Sherman, Sprüth Magers London

Cindy Sherman, 'Untitled', 2010

One of the best things about a Cindy Sherman show is you never know what you’re going to get. And in this exhibition, of a new series of "Untitled" images, what you get is very surprising indeed. Sherman's photographs are not about her, but they...

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Q&A Special: Photographer Colin Jones

Colin Jones was part of a legendarily painful triangle. Married to one of the greatest of ballerinas, Lynn Seymour, but constantly edged aside by the brilliant choreographer who was obsessed with her, Kenneth MacMillan, Jones left ballet to become a...

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Photo Gallery: 50 Years of the Ballet, By Colin Jones

1999: English National Ballet corps warm up in Hong Kong before 'Swan Lake'

Rudy and Margot do intensely serious barre in an Italian garden, Lynn Seymour enjoys a "Loyal Ballet" poster on a 1962 Japanese tour, in Glasgow two ballet girls snatch some rest in uncomfortable chairs. The real world of ballet, as shot by the...

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Film: Catfish

The 'Catfish' boys hit the road. Left to right: Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost, Nev Schulman

Ever since Catfish appeared in the States earlier in the year, debate has been raging about its bona fides. On the face of it an ingenious documentary playing smartly with the potential and pitfalls of social networking and the nature of personal...

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Photo Gallery: Ballet in Focus

A display of rarely seen photographs of key ballet dancers from the start of the 20th century goes on display at the National Portrait Gallery. The gallery holds the largest surviving archive of the once-fashionable Bassano Studio, London, including...

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