Visual Arts Reviews
Yoko Ono: To The Light, Serpentine GalleryThursday, 21 June 2012
The Eurozone is in crisis and the American economy stagnating; Syria is self-destructing, the Arab Spring has stalled and climate change threatens the whole planet, yet Yoko Ono believes that “the world, now, is really turning towards the light”. Read more... |
Mantegna to Matisse: Master Drawings, Courtauld GalleryWednesday, 20 June 2012
They’re all here - well, most of them - the superstars of official art history. You would never get all these artists in one show if it were a painting exhibition, and it’s thrilling to see them cheek-by-jowl on the gallery walls. Drawing is widely seen as a secondary art, relegated to preparation and research for bigger works. So, of course, the majority of works in the show are studies for bigger projects from paintings to architecture. Read more... |
Into Orbit: The Culture Show Special, BBC TwoSunday, 17 June 2012
What a mismatch of ambitions was unearthed in this Culture Show special on the ArcelorMittal Orbit. Boris Johnson admitted that he’d wanted slides on it, joking heartily that “there’s nothing too vulgar for me”, whilst Anish Kapoor wished for it to be “up there with the gods”, and mused that it had moments that were meditative and contemplative. Read more... |
Invisible: Art About the Unseen, 1957-2012, Hayward GalleryWednesday, 13 June 2012
In May 1958, Yves Klein invited the Parisian art world to the Galerie Iris Clert for the opening of his latest exhibition, which was entitled The Specialisation of the Sensibility in the Raw Material State of Stabilised Pictorial Sensibility. Driven by ample press coverage, large crowds eagerly awaited the unveiling of the artist’s latest creation, only to be met with nothing. Read more... |
All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry, Channel 4Wednesday, 06 June 2012
Taste and class – there’s really no separating them. Read more... |
Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary, V&AWednesday, 06 June 2012
Thomas Heatherwick, a boyish looking 42, is a creative polymath whose inventive and innovative approach to commissions ranges from bridges to lavatory doors, town planning to beach cafes, handbags to benches, staircases to transport (notably three new buses – the first new versions of the Routemaster for years - on the #38 route from Victoria to south London.) You may have been in a Heatherwick without knowing. Another five buses are turning up for the Olympics. Read more... |
Tracey Emin: She Lay Down Deep Beneath the Sea, Turner ContemporaryMonday, 28 May 2012
“I realise how lucky I am coming from Margate. It’s a most romantic, sexy, fucking weird place to come from. I didn’t come from the suburbs.” Tracey Emin’s relationship to her hometown mirrors a familiar trajectory. Like all difficult relationships, it has chipped away at her psyche for years. Not surprisingly, we’ve sensed it played out in her work: first defiance and rejection, then a kind of ambivalent reconciliation, and finally a deep affection. Read more... |
Yael Bartana: And Europe Will Be Stunned, Artangel at Hornsey Town HallMonday, 28 May 2012
In the cool, dim, municipal modernist interior of Hornsey Town Hall you’re confronted with a neon sign: And Europe Will be Stunned. It's the title of the trilogy of films at the heart of this Artangel-commissioned show by Israel-born Yael Bartana. The films are split in location around the building in an exhibition which includes neon slogans and posters which can be taken away, bearing manifestos in different languages. Read more... |
Burtynsky: OIL, The Photographers' GalleryWednesday, 23 May 2012
After a £9.2 million renovation of its new home on Ramillies Street by the Irish architects O’Donnell + Tuomey, the Photographers’ Gallery re-opened to the public on Saturday with a slick new look and an expertly curated exhibition of works by the veteran Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. Read more... |
The Queen: Art and Image, National Portrait GallerySunday, 20 May 2012
The Queen is the first mass-media monarch, and still probably the most ubiquitously depicted person in history. Her 60 years on the throne is only exceeded by Victoria, and her reign has coincided, of course, with photography, film and television. The profusion of royal imagery is exaggerated and exacerbated by the cult of celebrity and the new technology of the internet and social networking. Read more... |
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