mon 16/06/2025

Visual Arts Reviews

Pop Life: Art in a Material World, Tate Modern

Mark Hudson

That artists didn't just respond to the rapacious commercialism of the late 20th century, but actively contributed to it is hardly news. That the marketing of art can be part of the art itself  is something everyone now implicitly understands, even if it’s only through hearing Tracey Emin wittering about herself on television.

Read more...

Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler, British Museum

admin

History is written in blood, however elegant the cover. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the collapse in 1521 of the Aztec Empire, a culture that presented Europe with a vision of such otherness that it could only be destroyed. In 2002, the Royal Academy of Arts tried to persuade us to look beyond the grisly tales of human sacrifice to a more nuanced portrait of a people steeped in gory rituals that we, soaked in the serial-killer television porn of the 21st century, might strangely...

Read more...

Cindy Sherman, Sprüth Magers

Josh Spero

I don't think I've ever seen quite so high a patron:picture ratio as at the Cindy Sherman opening at Sprüth Magers on Grafton Street last night. The gallery verily overflowed with an unaccustomed mixture of Mayfair and Shoreditch, spilling out onto the street where neon t-shirts rubbed shoulders with tailored suits, all to see three pictures.

Read more...

Pages

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Pulp, O2 Arena review - common people like us

Jarvis Cocker is proudly holding the No 1 trophy handed to him on the day Pulp topped the album chart for the first time in 27 years with More...

Stereophonic, Duke of York's Theatre review - rich slic...

The tag “the most Tony-nominated play of all time” may mean less to London theatregoers than it does to New Yorkers, but Stereophonic,...

Mazeppa, Grange Park Opera review - a gripping reassessment

Tchaikovsky has precisely two operas in the standard repertoire (including The Queen of Spades, currently playing at Garsington), and...

Sam Fender, St James' Park, Newcastle review - Geordie...

Had a passer-by from outwith Newcastle been asked to guess...

Dandy, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manche...

The opening and closing concerts of a season tend to be statements of intent – to pursue a path of exploration or (latterly) to celebrate a...

Album: Yaya Bey - do it afraid

One of the great untold stories of the past decade is just how potent a cultural force R&B has been. It might not have had the wild musical...

North by Northwest, Alexandra Palace review - Hitchcock adap...

Older readers may recall the cobbled together, ramshackle play, a staple of the Golden Age of Light Entertainment that would close...

Music Reissues Weekly: Pilot - The Singles Collection

"It was really strange. Really quite conflicting, the sort of thing most bands didn't have to deal with. At the front, we'd have the kids who'd...

Tornado review - samurai swordswoman takes Scotland by storm

The opening images of Tornado are striking. A wild-haired young woman in Japanese peasant garb runs for her life through a barren forest...