fri 11/04/2025

Visual Arts Reviews

Ed Atkins, Tate Britain review - hiding behind computer generated doppelgängers

Sarah Kent

The best way to experience Ed Atkins’ exhibition at Tate Britain is to start at the end by watching Nurses Come and Go, But None For Me, a film he has just completed. It lasts nearly two hours but is worth the investment since it reveals what the rest of the work tries hard to avoid openly confronting – grief.

Read more...

Echoes: Stone Circles, Community and Heritage, Stonehenge Visitor Centre review - young photographers explore ancient resonances

Mark Sheerin

Stonehenge is about 5,000 years old; three photographic artists currently exhibiting in the visitor centre are all under the age of 25. The juxtaposition of 21st century and the ancient world has been facilitated by Shout Out Loud, a youth engagement programme from English Heritage, custodians of this historic monument. In collaboration with Photoworks, this gives rise to the first ever exhibition of new photography at the site.

Read more...

Hylozoic/Desires: Salt Cosmologies, Somerset House and The Hedge of Halomancy, Tate Britain review - the power of white powder

Sarah Kent

The railways that we built in India may be well known, but I bet you’ve never heard of the Customs Line, a hedge that stretched 2,500 miles across the subcontinent all the way from the River Indus to the border between Madras and Bengal – the distance between London and Istanbul. Comparable in scale to the great Wall of China, this 40-foot high barrier was created to prevent the smuggling of salt.

Read more...

Mickalene Thomas, All About Love, Hayward Gallery review - all that glitters

Sarah Kent

On walking into Mikalene Thomas’s exhibition at the Hayward Gallery my first reaction was “get me out of here”. To someone brought up on the paired down, less-is-more aesthetic of minimalism her giant, rhinestone-encrusted portraits are like a kick in the solar plexus – much too big and bright to stomach. Could I be expected to even consider accepting these gaudy monstrosities as art?

Read more...

Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker, Whitechapel Gallery review - absence made powerfully present

Sarah Kent

Donald Rodney’s most moving work is a photograph titled In the House of My Father, 1997 (main picture). Nestling in the palm of his hand is a fragile dwelling whose flimsy walls are held together by pins. This tiny model is made from pieces of the artist’s skin removed during one of the many operations he underwent during his short life; sadly he died the following year, aged only 37.

Read more...

Noah Davis, Barbican review - the ordinary made strangely compelling

Sarah Kent

In 2013 the American artist, Noah Davis used a legacy left him by his father to create a museum of contemporary art in Arlington Heights, an area of Los Angeles populated largely by Blacks and Latinos. But his Underground Museum faced a problem; it didn’t have any art to put on display and none of the institutions approached by Davis would loan him their precious holdings.

Read more...

Best of 2024: Visual Arts

Sarah Kent

I thought I might never be able to say it’s been a great year for women artists, so forgive me for focusing solely on them.

Read more...

Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet, Tate Modern review - an exhaustive and exhausting show

Sarah Kent

Last month a portrait of Alan Turing by AI robot AI-Da sold at Sotheby’s for $1.08 million – proof that, in some people’s eyes, artificial intelligence can produce paintings worth as much as those made by human hands.

Read more...

ARK: United States V by Laurie Anderson, Aviva Studios, Manchester review - a vessel for the thoughts and imaginings of a lifetime

Sarah Kent

Picture this: framing the stage are two pearlescent clouds which, throughout the performance, gently pulsate with flickering light. Behind them on a giant screen is a spinning globe, its seas twinkling like a million stars.

Read more...

Vanessa Bell, MK Gallery review - diving into and out of abstraction

Sarah Kent

The Bloomsbury group’s habit of non-binary bed-hopping has frequently attracted more attention than the artworks they produced. But in their Vanessa Bell retrospective, the MK Gallery has steered blissfully clear of salacious tittle tattle. Thankfully, this allows one to focus on Bell’s paintings and designs rather than her complicated domestic life.

Read more...

Pages

latest in today

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

theartsdesk on Vinyl: Record Store Day Special 2025

Record Store Day 2025 is tomorrow (Saturday 12th April 2025)! At theartsdesk on Vinyl we’ve been sent a selection of exclusive...

Sad Book, Hackney Empire review - What we feel, what we show...

Who goes to the theatre to feel sad? That is, knowing full well that they won’t be going home with a skip in their step. Many people, it would...

Small, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - re...

Kahchun Wong returned to the symphony with which he made his first big impression conducting the Hallé – and made a big impression with it again...

The Amateur review - revenge of the nerd

In a world of macho super-achievers like Jack Reacher and Ethan Hunt, maybe it’s time to hear it for the nerdy guys. The Amateur (based...

Holy Cow review - perfectly pitched coming-of-age tale in ru...

Director Louise Courvoisier has put herself firmly on the film map with this story of young Totone and his little sister, carving out a...

Album: Joe Lovano - Homage

Tenor titan Joe Lovano is thrilled by how Homage has turned out. He actually told me so himself in person a few weeks ago, and his new...

LSO, Noseda, Barbican review - Half Six shake-up

Tired after a hard day at the office? You might think you need a Classic FM-style warm bath, but the blast of Prokofiev’s Second Symphony, one of...

Album: Bon Iver - SABLE ƒABLE

With a sound that's instantly recognisable, Justin Vernon – known as Bon Iver - continues to astonish. Purveyor of wonder, sculptor of enchanting...

Primal Scream, O2 Academy, Birmingham review - from anthems...

Bobby Gillespie and Andrew Innes may have been steering the good ship Primal Scream for some 40 years but, on the evidence of this week’s visit to...