mon 16/09/2024

Visual Arts Reviews

Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers, National Gallery review - passions translated into paint

Sarah Kent

Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers includes many of his best known pictures and, amazingly, it is the first exhibition the National Gallery has devoted to this much loved artist. Focusing mainly on paintings and drawings made in the two years he lived in Provence (1888-1890), it charts the emotional highs and lows of his stay in the Yellow House in Arles, and the times he spent in

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Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent, Whitechapel Gallery review - photomontages sizzling with rage

Sarah Kent

Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent at the Whitechapel Gallery includes many of the artists’s most iconic political photomontages.

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Dominique White: Deadweight, Whitechapel Gallery review - sculptures that seem freighted with history

Sarah Kent

It’s been a long time since the Whitechapel Gallery has presented three seriously good exhibitions at the same time. Already reviewed are Gavin Jantjes’ paintings on show in the main gallery. He is now joined, in gallery 2, by Dominique White, winner of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women and in galleries 5, 6 & 7, by Peter Kennard.

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In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine 1900-1930s, Royal Academy review - famous avant-garde Russian artists who weren't Russian after all

Sarah Kent

Ukraine’s history is complex and often bitter. The territory has been endlessly fought over, divided, annexed and occupied. From 1917-20 it enjoyed a brief period of independence before being swallowed up once more by the Soviet Union after a vicious three year war – an example that Vladimir Putin is copying with his monstrous invasion.

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Francis Alÿs: Ricochets, Barbican review - fun for the kids, yet I was moved to tears

Sarah Kent

Belgian artist, Francis Alÿs has filled the Barbican Art Gallery with films of children playing games the world over.

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Gavin Jantjes: To Be Free, Whitechapel Gallery review - a sweet and sour response to horrific circumstances

Sarah Kent

Born in Cape Town in 1948, Gavin Jantjes grew up under apartheid. He openly criticised the regime in his work and, forced into exile, was granted political asylum in Germany in 1973.

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Laura Aldridge / Andrew Sim, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh review - lightness and joy

Mark Sheerin

Two shows at Jupiter Artland, one in a barn, one in a ballroom, showcase two Scottish artists, whose work shares a sense of lightness and joy. The sun was out, there was happiness all round. Laura Aldridge had painted the walls of her barn space a buttercup yellow and applied translucent film to the windows so that to spend time in her bijou show was like being in a solarium.

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Judy Chicago: Revelations, Serpentine Gallery review - art designed to change the world

Sarah Kent

Being a successful artist is not Judy Chicago’s primary goal. She abandoned that ambition six decades ago when the Los Angeles art world greeted her with hostility. Now she’s having the last laugh, though. At 84 she is being heaped with accolades, including induction into America’s National Women's Hall of Fame, and is enjoying worldwide celebrity.

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Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920, Tate Britain review - a triumph

Sarah Kent

Tate Britain’s Now You See Us could be the most important exhibition you’ll ever see. Spanning 400 hundred years, this overview of women artists in Britain destroys the myth that female talent is an exotic anomaly.

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Brancusi, Pompidou Centre, Paris review - a sculptor's spiritual quest for form and essence

mark Kidel

One hundred and twenty sculptures, and so much more: the current Brancusi blockbuster at the Centre Pompidou, the first large Paris show of the Romanian-born sculptor’s work since 1995, provides an exhilarating and in many ways definitive perspective on one of the founding figures of 20th century modernism.

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