Visual Arts Reviews
Thinking With the Body, Wellcome CollectionThursday, 19 September 2013
While the main gallery is closed for renovation, the Wellcome Collection has taken the opportunity to mount a fascinating upstairs show exploring the way choreographer Wayne McGregor collaborates with scientists. Read more... |
Australia, Royal AcademyWednesday, 18 September 2013
In The Importance of Being Earnest, first performed in 1895, Oscar Wilde wittily quipped that Algernon must choose between “this world, the next and Australia”. At a time when it took weeks to reach the other side of the globe most Britons, if they thought of it at all, thought of that far-flung continent as a convenient corral for undesirable fellow citizens. Read more... |
Tacita Dean, Frith Street GalleryTuesday, 17 September 2013
In 1970 the American artist Robert Smithson took several tonnes of mud and rock and built a jetty out into the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Instead of making a single, straight line, Smithson’s jetty curved round on itself and formed a spiral. Since no boat can dock at a spiral jetty, it joined Méret Oppenheim’s fur-lined teacup and Man Ray’s nail-studded clothes iron as an object whose function was subverted. Read more... |
Francis Bacon/Henry Moore: Flesh and Bone, Ashmolean MuseumSaturday, 14 September 2013
It is a shock, in this succinct exhibition of two British colossi of the past century, Henry Moore (1898-1986) and Francis Bacon (1909-1992), to be reminded of just how colossal and original are their achievements. We are shown their curiously affecting affinities, in their adherence to the human figure at the core of their work, and reminded through the display of documents and catalogues of their truly international success, both critical and financial. Read more... |
Jonathan Yeo Portraits, National Portrait GalleryWednesday, 11 September 2013
Grayson Perry is sitting pretty amid a swathe of soft-focus pink. Dressed as his alter ego Claire he sits on a pink bed with pink pillows, his pink ruched dress spread about him with its frilly underskirt on view. Read more... |
Museum HoursFriday, 06 September 2013
How we look at and value art, the stuff we accumulate around us, and our daily surroundings; how we look at and communicate with each other (or avoid doing so in the digital age); and if we do or don't see: these are some of the themes explored in Museum Hours, an immersive docufiction made in Vienna by the experimental, socially progressive Brooklyn filmmaker Jem Cohen. Read more... |
Rebuilding the World Trade Center, Channel 4Monday, 02 September 2013
“I see a lot of things up there, I get chills, see shadows. I don’t know if you call them ghosts or whatever, but you feel stuff. They’re trying to tell you something.” This is bolt boss Mohawk Joe “Flo” McComber, one of the many Mohawk iron workers rebuilding the World Trade Center. A tough guy, he’s not alone in sensing the spirits of the dead. “The site is being take care of in a different way. You feel it,” says Mike O’Reilly, another ironworker. Read more... |
Bob Dylan: Face Value, National Portrait GallerySaturday, 24 August 2013
Face Value – heh, who’d have thought to come up with that title for an exhibition of portraits? Yeah, it’s not particularly clever, but there’s something of the contrarian mischief-maker in it all the same, for in the 50 years that Bob Dylan has been making music, giving interviews and being lionised as the son of God, there’s never been much danger of anyone taking him at face value. Or at least there shouldn’t be. Read more... |
The Man Who Collected the World: William Burrell, BBC FourThursday, 22 August 2013
Had the wealthy William Burrell had a son, Glasgow might not have acquired the world-class art collection that the shipping entrepreneur amassed during his long life. But with the birth of a sole daughter came both ambitions and suspicion – he raised Marion to succeed to his art empire, then imagined every suitor to be a gold-digger, breaking off her third engagement with a public announcement in the newspaper that took even her by surprise. Read more... |
Mass Observation: This Is Your Photo, Photographers' GalleryWednesday, 14 August 2013
There was an unmistakable trend within Modernism to try and record absolutely everything about ordinary life. Think of Joyce and his attempt to set down all of Leopold Bloom’s thoughts, or the cubists and their use of even the tiniest scrap of newsprint in a collage. 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...
La Straniera, Chelsea Opera Group, Barlow, Cadogan Hall revi...
Chelsea Opera Group has made its own luck in winning the devotion of two great bel canto exponents: Nelly Miricioiu between 1998 and 2010...
Dept. Q, Netflix review - Danish crime thriller finds a new...
Netflix’s new detective-noir is a somewhat cosmopolitan beast. It’s written and directed by an American, Scott Frank, derived from a novel, ...
The Queen of Spades, Garsington Opera review - sonorous glid...
Recent events have prompted the assertion – understandable in Ukraine – that the idea of the Russian soul is a nationalist myth. This production...
Blu-ray: Eclipse
What constitutes a “lost classic”? I guess we can’t say it’s an oxymoron, since we readily accept the concept of “instant classic”? Either way,...
The Ballad of Wallis Island review - the healing power of th...
I think The Ballad of Wallis Island is the best...
Music Reissues Weekly: Pete Shelley - Homosapien, XL-1
Pete Shelley’s departure from Buzzcocks felt abrupt. When he left the...
The Salt Path review - the transformative power of nature
“I can’t move my arms or legs, but apart from that I’m good to go.” Moth (Jason Isaacs) has to be pulled out of the tent in his sleeping bag by...
Elephant, Menier Chocolate Factory review - subtle, humorous...
This charmingly eloquent semi-autobiographical show – which first played at the Bush Theatre in 2022 – tells the story of a girl whose...
