conceptual art
Louise Bourgeois & Tracey Emin, Do Not Abandon Me, Hauser & WirthThursday, 17 February 2011![]() Louise Bourgeois died last year at nearly 100, a revered figure: survivor of the Surrealist movement into the 21st century, a pioneer of autobiographical expression, whose fame came only late in life. Tracey Emin, by contrast, found fame early,... Read more... |
Cory Arcangel, The Curve, BarbicanWednesday, 09 February 2011![]() It is probably a worrying sign when the computer games of your youth become the historical butt of a conceptual art joke. Digital artist Cory Arcangel, who appropriates video-game technology, repurposes and redesigns it, has installed 14 10-pin... Read more... |
Martin Creed, Hauser & WirthThursday, 27 January 2011![]() Who could not love Martin Creed? The tweed-encased harumphers of the world adore him, because they can say, “That’s not art,” and, “My cat could do that,” and have an all-round wonderful time. Conceptualists have it easy: what could be more fun... Read more... |
Gabriel Orozco, Tate ModernMonday, 17 January 2011![]() The show opens with his iconic 1991 piece, My Hands are My Heart, a double photograph of Orozco’s naked torso. In the first photograph his hands clutch a hidden object at chest-height; in the second the hands splay open to present to the viewer a... Read more... |
Cindy Sherman, Sprüth Magers LondonFriday, 14 January 2011![]() One of the best things about a Cindy Sherman show is you never know what you’re going to get. And in this exhibition, of a new series of "Untitled" images, what you get is very surprising indeed. Sherman's photographs are not about her, but they... Read more... |
Never the Same River (Possible Futures, Probable Pasts), Camden Arts CentreFriday, 17 December 2010![]() Simon Starling’s wonderfully eccentric exhibition Never the Same River (Possible Futures, Probable Pasts) will inevitably mean more to those who have visited the Camden Arts Centre regularly over the years. Places gradually acquire a patina of... Read more... |
A whip-cracking Christmas at Tate BritainThursday, 09 December 2010![]() It’s the time of year when Tate Britain unveils its much-anticipated, artist-designed Christmas tree. Over the years, we’ve had Fiona Banner decorating hers with unpainted Airfix models of fighter planes, while Sarah Lucas hung hers with stuffed... Read more... |
Art Gallery: GSK Contemporary - Aware: Art Fashion IdentityThursday, 02 December 2010![]() Fashion and conceptual art come together, sometimes awkwardly, often provocatively, in the Royal Academy’s third and final annual GSK Contemporary exhibition. Instead of celebrating glamour and excess, designers and artists – as well as those, such... Read more... |
Shadow Catchers: Camera-less Photography, Victoria & Albert MuseumFriday, 15 October 2010![]() Camera-less photography isn’t, as some might think, a 20th-century invention, discovered by experimental Modernists such as Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray. Thomas Wedgwood, before the invention of the camera and at the very beginning of the 19th century,... Read more... |
Tilbury, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Volkov, Royal Albert HallSunday, 22 August 2010![]() A metallic shower rained down upon us as five percussionists of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's percussion sextet unleashed the meteoric potential of five huge metal thundersheets on our unsuspecting ears, and percussionist number six, a... Read more... |
The The Things Is (For Three), Milton Keynes GalleryMonday, 12 July 2010![]() It’s not often you find yourself in an art gallery with the business end of a bullwhip whizzing inches from your nose. Wielded by a disconcertingly slight, black-haired woman who can barely be half its length, the terrifying instrument defines the... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Artist Mark WallingerSunday, 06 June 2010![]() For his new show at Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London, Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Wallinger will be unveiling a first: a life-sized, three-dimensional "self-portrait". But it won't be a straightforward representation of the 50-year-old... Read more... |
