Visual arts
Picasso and Modern British Art, Tate BritainSunday, 12 February 2012An exhibition exploring Picasso's life-long connections with Br itain, charting the Spanish artist's rise in Britain as a figure of both c ontroversy and celebrity. It also examines Picasso's impact on 20th-centuryfigure, including Ben Nicholson,... Read more... |
Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton: A Diamond Jubilee Celebration, Victoria & Albert MuseumThursday, 09 February 2012
The work of the photographer, theatrical designer, narcissist, snob, careerist, and exceptionally talented Cecil Beaton (1904-1980), including 18,000 vintage prints, negatives and transparencies, contact sheets and 45 books of cuttings are at the... Read more... |
Lucian Freud: Portraits, National Portrait GalleryWednesday, 08 February 2012
Sitting for Lucian Freud was quite a commitment. Unlike Hockney, whom he painted and who painted him, Freud was a very slow painter and he was methodical. Paying close attention to detail and absorbed by different textures, he was intent on building... Read more... |
Louise Bourgeois: The Return of the Repressed, Freud MuseumSunday, 05 February 2012Louise Bourgeois: The Return of the Repressed: Drawings, sculp ture and writing by the French artist who died in 2010. The exhibition is b ased on the discovery of two boxes of writings by her personal assistant. T hese constitute an archive of over... Read more... |
The Excruciating Power of the Parental Legacy: My First Foray Into CuratingSaturday, 04 February 2012
Remember when you were out playing football with your mates, and your dad pulled up beside the pitch in a slightly too flashy car and told you it was time for tea or – even worse – tried to join in the game – and how you died inside. Actually, I don... Read more... |
theASHtray: Beyoncé, 'Bond', and Eddie Redmayne's lipsSaturday, 04 February 2012
So, Birdsong is over, and for all the arts-crit ink spilled upon it I am still none the wiser vis-à-vis my three main points of concern. First: it is a truth universally acknowledged (I asked around) that the most memorable episode in... Read more... |
Migrations: Journeys into British Art, Tate BritainFriday, 03 February 2012
Billed as an exploration of the contribution made by immigrants to British art, Migrations is ridiculously ambitious. Starting with the sixteenth century, it hops and skips through to the present day, inevitably leaving out a lot of people on the... Read more... |
David Shrigley: Brain Activity, Hayward GalleryThursday, 02 February 2012
It has been nearly a century since modernism decreed that “art” is whatever is produced by an artist, and “an artist” is whoever claims to be one. Mostly I agree with this, and my eyeballs tend to roll back in my head when the conversation moves on... Read more... |
Mary Heilmann / Michael Raedecker, Hauser & Wirth GalleryWednesday, 01 February 2012Mary Heilmann: Visions, Waves and Road: Abstract paintings by preeminent American artist whose work straddles the geometries of Minimalis m with the spontaneous ethos of the Beat Generation. Until 5 April http:/ /bit.ly/yLaDMA Michael Raedecker:... Read more... |
Powerless Structures unveiled on Fourth PlinthWednesday, 01 February 2012Art duo Elmgreen & Dragset's Fourth Plinth commission, 'Powerl ess Structures', which depicts a golden child on a golden rocking horse, is unveiled by the Mayor of London. http://www.london.gov.uk/fourthplinth / Read more... |
Gillian Wearing, Whitechapel GalleryWednesday, 01 February 2012The first major retrospective of Gillian Wearing's internationa lly acclaimed photographs and films. Fascinated by how people present thems elves in front of the camera, the Turner Prize-winning artist explores ide as of personal identity through... Read more... |
The private space of Lucian Freud revealedWednesday, 01 February 2012
Pallant House in Chichester has just inaugurated the series of Lucian Freud exhibitions this season which have have now become memorial commemorations since the artist’s death last July. Freud’s life and studio have taken on a mythic quality,... Read more... |
