mon 07/07/2025

Visual Arts Reviews

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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Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider, Tate Modern review - a missed opportunity

Sarah Kent

In 1903, Wassily Kandinsky painted a figure in a blue cloak galloping across a landscape on a white horse. Several years later the name of the painting, The Blue Rider (der Blaue Reiter) was adopted by a group of friends who joined forces to exhibit together and disseminate their ideas in a publication of the same name.

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Eye to Eye: Homage to Ernst Scheidegger, MASI Lugano review - era-defining artist portraits

Mark Sheerin

With a troubled gaze and a lived-in face, the portrait of artist Alberto Giacometti on a withdrawn Swiss banknote is strange currency indeed. One need only think of the confidence and pomp with which national heroes gaze at us from Great British cash.

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Stephen review - a breathtakingly good first feature by a multi-media artist

Sarah Kent

Stephen is the first feature film by multi-media artist Melanie Manchot and it’s the best debut film I’ve seen since Steve McQueen’s Hunger. It’s gripping from the first frame to the last; the tension rarely lets up as we watch the main character lying and cheating his way through life as he struggles with addiction and is fleeced by card and loan sharks. In a heart-wrenching scene, his brother Paul (expertly played by Cam Riley) begs him to seek help.

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