Visual Arts Features
First Person: Robert Hollingworth on I Fagiolini's 'Leonardo - Shaping the Invisible'Friday, 26 April 2019
Leonardo da Vinci died 500 years ago on 2 May this year. We all know he was a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, pioneer of flight and anatomist – yet according to Vasari, Leonardo’s first job outside Florence was as a result of his musical talents. Read more... |
h 100 Awards: Art, Design and Craft - making art publicWednesday, 29 August 2018
This year’s nominees represent the wealth of innovative activity that makes British art, craft and design fresh and exciting. Artists and makers dominate the shortlist, and rightly so, but curators, an educator, and a journalist reflect the importance of public engagement with the visual arts, and the many ways in which this is achieved. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Riga - 43,290 Latvians sing and dance for their countryTuesday, 24 July 2018
"They incessantly break down, destroy and fragment the mistrust that exists among people," wrote a Latvian journalist of a folklore group during the start of the Baltic countries' "singing revolution" against Soviet rule in 1988. Read more... |
'That brick red frock with flowers everywhere': painting Katherine MansfieldFriday, 15 June 2018
The well-known portrait of New Zealand’s greatest writer, Katherine Mansfield, is exactly 100 years old on 17 June 2018 (main picture). It was painted by the American artist Anne Estelle Rice. Read more... |
Helaine Blumenfeld: Britain’s most successful sculptor you’ve never heard ofTuesday, 17 April 2018
Sexy is an overused word in the arts but it’s an adjective you can’t help applying to some of Helaine Blumenfeld’s voluptuous marble sculptures as you run your fingers over their surfaces. These abstract bodily forms, often in the purest icing-white crystalline stone, are so tempting that you almost want to lick them. Read more... |
'There's a poetry in painting that gives endless possibilities'Tuesday, 20 March 2018
It was always my dream to be an artist but I never expected to be a curator. Graduates considering vocations in critical and curatorial practice went to the Royal College of Art or studied art history at university. Not me: I trained at Chelsea College of Art and then went to the British School at Rome where I was the Abbey Scholar in Painting. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Korea: national pride and candourTuesday, 06 March 2018
Fear not. The Arts Desk has not suddenly sprouted a Sports Desk. Heaven forfend. Korea in late February had more to offer than luge, bobsleigh, skeleton and all the other bemedalled and potentially life-threatening variants of hurling bodies down icy slopes. The host region of every Olympic Games throws open a window to the world on its culture, and PyeongChang 2018 was no different. Read more... |
Highlights from the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2017 - raw emotion, not always humanThursday, 16 November 2017
What does it take to be included in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition? This year 2,423 photographers entered 5,717 images: 2,373 of those photographers are left wondering what it takes to make the grade. Read more... |
Out from the Darkness: painting out prisonMonday, 13 November 2017
When I was sent to an adult high security prison aged 14 all the normal colour, shapes and movement that I saw around me each and every day as a child disappeared. It wasn’t there. Prison does that; it’s all straight lines, hard on the eye, hard to the touch. There are square walls or oblongs but there are no triangles, no interesting shapes. Read more... |
ArtReview Power 100 - an artist tops the listFriday, 03 November 2017
Annual lists of the richest, the most powerful, the movers and shakers, have an awful fascination: like gossip, we like to look and comment while feeling slightly morally compromised. But they also have a function as a snapshot of where we are at. Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
The Salt Path review - the transformative power of nature
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Elephant, Menier Chocolate Factory review - subtle, humorous...
This charmingly eloquent semi-autobiographical show – which first played at the Bush Theatre in 2022 – tells the story of a girl whose...
Album: Nick Mulvey - Dark Harvest Pt.1
Nick Mulvey’s first two albums, First Mind in 2014 and Wake Up Now in 2017, are among the loveliest singer-songwriter fare...
This is My Family, Southwark Playhouse - London debut of 201...
MOR. Twee. Unashamedly crowdpleasing. Are such descriptors indicative of a tedious night in the stalls? For your reviewer, who has...
Alan Sparhawk, EartH Theatre review - an absorbing game of t...
For the first half-hour of this show – on the day before the release of his new album Alan Sparhawk With Trampled by Turtles – Alan...
10 Questions for musician Michael Gira
Michael Gira (born 19/2/54) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, author and artist. He founded Swans, a band in which he sings and plays...
Album: Miley Cyrus - Something Beautiful
A couple of months ago, I wrote here that Lady Gaga was the godmother of the new generation of ostentatiously “theatre kid” pop stars – but...
The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone, BBC Two - boom and bust...
As this two-part documentary vividly illustrates, it...