Visual Arts Reviews

Phyllida Barlow: Cul-de-sac, Royal Academy review - unadulterated delight

Sarah Kent Saturday, 23 February 2019

It doesn’t get better than this! Phyllida Barlow has transformed the Royal Academy’s Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler Galleries into a euphoric delight. Entering the space, you have to turn right and process through the three galleries; but by closing the end door to create the cul-de-sac of the title, Barlow has turned this somewhat prescriptive lay-out into a theatrical experience.

John Ruskin: The Power of Seeing, Two Temple Place review - inside the mind of a visionary

Marina Vaizey Thursday, 14 February 2019

The power of seeing was the bedrock of John Ruskin’s philosophy. In the bicentenary of his birth, a revelatory exhibition at Two Temple Place in London opens out the idea and makes it manifest through both his own work and the treasures of his collection.

Don McCullin, Tate Britain review - beastliness made beautiful

Sarah Kent Monday, 11 February 2019

I interviewed Don McCullin in 1983 and the encounter felt like peering into a deep well of darkness. The previous year he’d been in Beirut photographing the atrocities carried out by people on both sides of the civil war and his impeccably composed pictures were being published as a book.

Pierre Bonnard: The Colour of Memory review, Tate Modern - plenty but empty

Florence Hallett Tuesday, 05 February 2019

“Slow looking” is the phrase du jour at Tate Modern, an enjoinder flatly contradicted by the extent of this exhibition, which in the history of the gallery’s supersized shows counts as a blow-out.

Comment

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, Victoria & Albert Museum - sumptuous

Katherine Waters Thursday, 31 January 2019

The heart of the V&A’s sumptuous Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is a room dedicated to the workmanship of the fashion house’s ateliers.

Fausto Melotti: Counterpoint, Estorick Collection review - harmonious things

Katherine Waters Saturday, 26 January 2019

For an artist whose cerebral and frequently playful works reference physics, myth and music, Fausto Melotti’s artistic education was appropriately heterogeneous.

Bill Viola/Michelangelo: Life Death Rebirth, Royal Academy review - empty rhetoric versus focused intensity

Sarah Kent Friday, 25 January 2019

Its a preposterous act of hubris, isn’t it? Pairing large scale video installations by American artist Bill Viola with drawings by Michelangelo can’t possibly illuminate our experience of either art form; or can it?

Best of 2018: Art

Florence Hallett Monday, 31 December 2018

Exhibitions routinely claim to be a once in a lifetime experience, but there can be no doubt about the prince among them this year, the Royal Academy’s spectacular Charles I: King and Collector.

Edwin Landseer / Rachel Maclean, National Gallery review - a juxtaposition of opposites

Sarah Kent Tuesday, 04 December 2018

Familiarity breeds contempt, which makes it difficult to look at Edwin Landseer’s The Monarch of the Glen (pictured below). The reproduction of this proud beastie on T-towels, aprons, jigsaws and biscuit tins blinds one to the subtle nuances of the original painting.

Māris Briežkalns Quintet, EFG London Jazz Festival 2018 review - a Rothko symphony

David Nice Monday, 26 November 2018

One part of the brain, they tell us, responds to visual art and another, quite different, to music; we can't cope adequately with both at once. Which is why I'm often wary of those musical organisations which think that what we hear needs to be livened up with more to see: mixing Debussy with so-called "Impressionists", for instance, or Stravinsky with Cubism.

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