Visual Arts Reviews
Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art, Barbican review - great theme, disappointing showTuesday, 08 October 2019
The Barbican’s latest offering – a look at the clubs and cabarets set up by artists mainly in the early years of the 20th century – is a brilliant theme for an exhibition. Read more... |
Kara Walker: Fons Americanus, Tate Modern review – a darkly humorous giftThursday, 03 October 2019
Soaring some 40 feet up towards the ceiling of Tate Modern’s vast Turbine Hall, Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus looks ludicrously out of place – like a Victorian interloper within this cathedral to contemporary art. Read more... |
William Blake, Tate Britain - sympathy for the rebelSunday, 29 September 2019
Poor Satan. Adam and Eve are loved-up, snogging on a flowery hillock and all he’s got for company is a snake — an extension of himself no less, and where’s the fun in monologues? Poor, poor Satan. He’s a hunk too, if you don’t mind blue. Coiffed hair and toned arms with a sexy sky slouch. Ever seen such a lovely lounger? Ever seen such a mournful moue? He’s angel worthy of our pity, even if he is fallen. Read more... |
Van Gogh’s Inner Circle, Noordbrabants Museum review - the man behind the artThursday, 26 September 2019
Vincent van Gogh (b. 1853) could be difficult, truculent and unconventional. He battled with mental illness and wrestled with questions of religion throughout his life. But on good form he was personable. He was said to be an excellent imitator with a wry sense of humour, and was a loyal (if often fierce) friend and family relation. Read more... |
Peter Doig, Michael Werner review - ambiguous and excellentWednesday, 25 September 2019
There are two moons in Night Bathers, 2019 (pictured below) One is set in the sky, a great soupy plate with a greenish fringe creating an ugly smear of white across the night. The other is a treacherously hazy rectangle, floating like a cloud above a reclining bather — so inexplicable it could double as a cataract. The latter is, perhaps, a reflection of the former, but at a surreal remove — no reflection looks like that, no reflected light would fall there. Read more... |
Tim Walker: Wonderful Things, V&A review - a bracing full-body immersionTuesday, 24 September 2019
If leafing through the pages of Vogue is a soothing balm, Wonderful Things is a bracing full-body immersion. Read more... |
Artists in Amsterdam, Dulwich Picture Gallery review - a slight but evocative sketchWednesday, 28 August 2019
Done well, a one-room exhibition can be the very best sort, a small selection of paintings allowing the focused exploration of a single topic without the diluting effect of multiple rooms and objects. Read more... |
Edinburgh Festival 2019 reviews: Below the Blanket / Samson Young: Real MusicTuesday, 06 August 2019
Below the Blanket ★★★★ Read more... |
Black Sabbath: 50 years, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery review – not heavy goingFriday, 02 August 2019
The well-spring of certain musical genres and hometowns of certain influential musicians have long been a source of civic pride – and a boost to the tourist industry – in many clued-in parts of the world. One only has to think of the co-opting of Bob Marley’s life and influence in attracting tourist dollars to Jamaica or the raising of the Beatles to mythic status – bus tours and all – in Liverpool. Read more... |
Helen Schjerfbeck, Royal Academy review - watchful absences and disappearing peopleMonday, 22 July 2019
Light creeps under the church door. Entering as a slice of burning white, it softens and blues into the stone interior, seeming to make the walls glow from the inside. Beneath the lintel, a milder slot of sun pours upwards. To the right, a plain column, only half in the composition, supports an arch which merges with the back wall, disappearing against its horizontal plane. The chapel is empty but its stillness feels peopled. Here, absence is watchful. Read more... |
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