Visual arts
The Courtauld Gallery - the old place, just betterThursday, 02 December 2021
The Courtauld Gallery’s dark corners have gone, and with them a certain apt melancholy, that effortlessly summoned the ghosts of Gauguin’s Nevermore, 1897, – the abused and exploited girls of Tahiti; and Delius, who had this painting in... Read more... |
Lubaina Himid, Tate Modern review – more explication pleaseMonday, 29 November 2021
Lubaina Himid won the Turner Prize in 2017 for the retrospective she held jointly at Modern Art, Oxford and Spike Island, Bristol. My review of those shows ended with the question: “Which gallery will follow the examples of Oxford and Bristol and... Read more... |
The Danish Collector: Delacroix to Gauguin review - fabulous art, not sure about the framingMonday, 29 November 2021
In Paris on a business trip in 1916, Wilhelm Hansen was no doubt typical of many husbands in confessing to his wife that he’d been a bit reckless in his personal spending (“You’ll forgive me once you see what I’ve bought”). But he was hardly typical... Read more... |
Paris Photo 2021 review - a moveable feastSaturday, 27 November 2021
Paris Photo 2021 was a wonderful show. Back after the pandemic it was moved to the Grand Palais Éphémère, a temporary structure built to host major art exhibitions while the Grand Palais itself is modernised in preparation for the 2024 Olympics.... Read more... |
'A nun destroyed my tent': artist Kate Daudy talks about NFTs, refugees, and having her work thrown out with the trashWednesday, 10 November 2021
It’s been a turbulent week for British artist Kate Daudy. Am I My Brother’s Keeper, her refugee tent (main picture), the art installation and seminal work that propelled her to international fame is gone, thrown out with the trash."A nun... Read more... |
Waste Age, Design Museum review - too little too lameFriday, 29 October 2021
I should have emerged from the Design Museum sizzling with furious determination to help solve the world’s rubbish crisis. Trashing the planet is, after all, the most important issue of our time and Waste Age details the enormity of the problem.The... Read more... |
'Of course art doesn't change the world': Situationist artist Jacqueline de Jong on violence, eroticism and the importance of humourFriday, 22 October 2021
Jacqueline de Jong doesn’t want to talk politics. But this should have been foreseeable. After all, she has travelled to Mostyn, in Llandudno, for her first solo exhibition in a UK art institution. And this is a painting show, not a political rally.... Read more... |
Documenting the unimaginable: photographer Sebastião Salgado talks about climate change, dodging caimans and changing perspectivesThursday, 21 October 2021
Sebastião Salgado has carved out his career by documenting the unimaginable. He takes areas of life all too often ignored by wealthy westerners and reveals them in mesmerising, teeming detail.To look at one of his photographs is to experience... Read more... |
Yoko Ono, Mend Piece, Whitechapel Gallery review – funny and sad in equal measureThursday, 07 October 2021
Its more than 50 years since Yoko Ono first presented Mend Piece at the Indica Gallery, London in the exhibition through which she met John Lennon. The piece is currently being revisited at the Whitechapel Gallery and, in the intervening years, its... Read more... |
Theaster Gates - A Clay Sermon, Whitechapel Gallery review - mud, mud, glorious mudTuesday, 05 October 2021
Last year a stoneware jar by David Drake sold at auction for $1.3 million. It fetched this extraordinary price because of its history: Drake was a slave on a plantation in South Carolina who not only made fabulous pots, but dared sign and date them... Read more... |
Isamu Noguchi, Barbican review – the most elegant exhibition in townFriday, 01 October 2021
Isamu Noguchi may not be a household name, yet one strand of his work is incredibly familiar. In 1951 he visited a lamp factory in Gifu, a Japanese city famous for its paper lanterns. This prompted him to design the lampshades that, for decades,... Read more... |
Gerhard Richter: Drawings, Hayward Gallery review - exquisite ruminationsWednesday, 29 September 2021
In 2015, an abstract painting by Gerhard Richter broke the world record for contemporary art by selling at auction for £30.4m, and the octogenarian is often described as the most important living artist. But I’ve always found the prices fetched by... Read more... |
