Visual Arts Reviews
The Everyday and the Extraordinary, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne review - the ordinary made strangeThursday, 04 October 2018
There’s a building site outside the Towner Art Gallery and a cement mixer seems to have strayed over the threshold into the foyer. This specimen (pictured below right) no longer produces cement, though. David Batchelor has transformed it into an absurdist neon sign by outlining it with fluorescent tubes. Read more... |
Oceania, Royal Academy review - magnificent encountersTuesday, 02 October 2018
In the video, Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner smiles shyly before beginning. As she speaks, her voice gains conviction, momentum, power. Her poem tells of the Marshall Islands inhabitants, a “proud people toasted dark brown”, and a constellation of islands dropped from a giant’s basket to root in the ocean. She describes “papaya golden sunsets”, “skies uncluttered”, and the ocean itself, “terrifying and regal”. Read more... |
Space Shifters, Hayward Gallery review - seeing is not always believingFriday, 28 September 2018
There are some wonderful things in Space Shifters, the Hayward Gallery’s autumn exhibition. The selection of work plays with one’s perceptions of space and everything in it. Read more... |
Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt, V&A review - gaming for allThursday, 27 September 2018
Design/Play/Disrupt at the V&A covers a wide variety of games that are spearheading the gaming world at the moment. It takes a closer look at eight of the most innovative and different games that have changed the world of gaming in the last five years. Read more... |
Turner Prize 2018, Tate Britain review - a shortlist dominated by political issuesTuesday, 25 September 2018
I’ve just spent four hours in the Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain. The shortlisted artists all show films or videos, which means that you either stay for the duration or make the decision to walk away, which feels disrespectful. Read more... |
Courtauld Impressionists: From Manet to Cézanne review - much loved treasures, seen afreshMonday, 24 September 2018
Heir to one of this country's great textile manufacturing firms, Samuel Courtauld (1876-1947) – highly original in his then unfashionable fascination with the art of his own lifetime – bought some of the best known and best loved paintings now in the public domain. Read more... |
I object, British Museum review - censorship, accidental?Saturday, 22 September 2018
It’s the nature of satire to reflect what it mocks, so as you’d expect from a British Museum exhibition curated by Ian Hislop, I object is a curiously establishment take on material anti-establishmentarianism from BC something-or-other right up to the present day. Read more... |
Renzo Piano, Royal Academy review - worth the effortFriday, 14 September 2018
Architecture is notoriously difficult to present in an accessible way and this survey of Italian architect Renzo Piano, who gave London the Shard, does not solve the problem. Read more... |
h 100 Young Influencers of the Year: Marina Gerner on Russian artThursday, 23 August 2018
On a recent visit to the Royal Academy, I noticed a tall, elegantly dressed man who spent quite some time admiring a square object attached to the wall. I wondered whether to tell him that far from being Russian avant-garde art, which was the theme of the exhibition, it was in fact the temperature and humidity control box. Read more... |
Roderic O’Conor and the Moderns, National Gallery of Ireland review - experiments in Pont-AvenWednesday, 01 August 2018
In the autumn of 1892 Émile Bernard wrote home to his mother that, following the summer decampment to Pont-Aven of artists visiting from Paris and further afield, there remained "some artists here, two of them talented and copying each other. 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...
Krapp's Last Tape, Barbican review - playing with the l...
In the Stygian darkness of a bare room, a table on a low platform with a light hanging overhead starts to emerge. Then a door briefly...
Formula E: Driver, Prime Video - inside the world's fir...
The success of Netflix’s Drive to Survive not only provoked a viewer-stampede towards the world’s most expensive...
Do Ho Suh: Walk the House, Tate Modern review - memories are...
A traditional Korean house has appeared at Tate Modern....
Die Walküre, Royal Opera review - total music drama
Wagner’s universe, in the second of his Ring operas which brings semi-humans on board to challenge the gods, matches exaltation and misery, terror...
Georgia Mancio, Alan Broadbent, Pizza Express Dean Street re...
Does it spark joy? Yes, definitely...and maybe we music critics should ask the Marie Kondo question more often. London-based vocalist/lyricist...
The Extraordinary Miss Flower review - odd mashup of music,...
The makers of The Extraordinary Miss Flower are billing it as a “performance film”, a subspecies of the concert-movie...
Borrowed Time: Lennon's Last Decade review - how the gr...
Purporting to be a documentary about John Lennon in the 1970s, Borrowed Time is no such thing....
Album: PUP - Who Will Look After The Dogs?
PUP’s Who Will Look After The Dogs? is a raw and emotionally charged album that captures the band’s chaotic spirit while showing clear...