Tate Britain
Painting Now: Five Contemporary Artists, Tate BritainWednesday, 13 November 2013
A chronological hang of its permanent collection instead of the once so modish thematic one, a show devoted entirely to contemporary painting, which was not at all modish until quite recently – things are definitely astir at Tate Britain. Next week... Read more... |
Art Under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm, Tate BritainFriday, 18 October 2013
Seeing the statue of Saddam Hussein toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, I felt a rush of euphoria despite deep reservations about the American invasion. My (misplaced) optimism was shared by the Iraqi student, Ayass Mohammed. ’“Suddenly I felt freedom... Read more... |
Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life, Tate BritainSunday, 30 June 2013
It’s part of the Lowry myth – the myth of many famous artists, in fact, whether or not it actually happens to be true – that he’s never been taken seriously as an artist by critics or by cognoscenti. Even the co-curator of this exhibition, T.J Clark... Read more... |
Patrick Caulfield/Gary Hume, Tate BritainWednesday, 05 June 2013
Patrick Caulfield (1936-2005) is the greatest late 20th-century British painter the international art world has never heard of. This quietly magnificent exhibition of about 35 paintings, most of them very large, may at last bring about a... Read more... |
Turner Prize 2013 shortlist: Is David Shrigley an artist? and other thoughtsThursday, 25 April 2013
“Is David Shrigley an artist?,” a journalist asked at Tate Britain’s Turner Prize shortlist announcement this morning. Well, many would say so, though The Arts Desk critic Judith Flanders had her own reservations after seeing his Hayward... Read more... |
Schwitters in Britain, Tate BritainWednesday, 30 January 2013
The Pop Art collages of Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi and, more recently, the wayward sculptures and installations of artists like Phyllida Barlow would be unthinkable without the inspirational presence in Britain of Kurt Schwitters. Yet the... Read more... |
Opinion: Turner Prize 2012 - the year of film artTuesday, 04 December 2012
Unusually for a Turner Prize, or for contemporary art generally for that matter, it was the year that film outshone other media. Paul Noble may have initially been the popular, and the bookies' favourite, but as technically impressive as his... Read more... |
Turner Prize 2012, Tate BritainTuesday, 02 October 2012
There are two films in the Turner Prize exhibition and taken together and watched end-to-end they last just under three hours. That sounds gruelling for an art exhibition, but they’re from the strongest two candidates on this year’s shortlist. And... Read more... |
Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde, Tate BritainWednesday, 12 September 2012
The vividly dramatic story of Isabella, from a poem by Keats (in turn from Boccacio’s Decameron,) crying over her lover Lorenzo, who, base born, was murdered by her brothers, was much admired by the Victorians. The tale is not for the squeamish: the... Read more... |
Another London: International Photographers Capture City Life 1930-1980, Tate BritainMonday, 30 July 2012
Unadulterated happiness: swinging on the wheel, high above the ground, at the fair on Hampstead Heath in 1949, in Wolf Suschitzky’s photograph that effortlessly conveys that sense of moving at ease through the sky. Fourteen years earlier the... Read more... |
Turner Prize 2012 shortlistWednesday, 02 May 2012
Where’s Marcus Coates? The gangly shaman-artist was last seen communing with the dark spirit of the soon-to-be demolished Heygate Estate in the Elephant and Castle, but, hell, he’s nowhere on the Turner Prize 2012 shortlist.Coates is an artist whose... Read more... |
Picasso and Modern British Art, Tate BritainWednesday, 15 February 2012
Pablo Picasso is the presiding genius of 20th century art, the most influential artist in the modern period, lauded for his protean inventiveness, originality, individuality and overwhelming productivity. In 1934 poet Geoffrey Grigson declared that... Read more... |
