Visual arts
Antoine Watteau, Royal Academy and Wallace CollectionFriday, 11 March 2011
As a young man searching for a way to make a living in Paris, Antoine Watteau briefly tried his hand at engraving fashion plates. He seems to have had a natural affinity for cloth and drew its folds and creases with such apparent ease that you can... Read more... |
Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World, British MuseumThursday, 10 March 2011
I’m in an exhibition of ancient artefacts from Afghanistan, all from the National Museum at Kabul, but I may well have stumbled into the wrong room at the British Museum. I could be in the BM’s Hellenic section of Greek art, or, taking a few steps... Read more... |
Picasso in Paris 1900-1907, Van Gogh Museum, AmsterdamThursday, 10 March 2011
An artist as inventive and as protean as Picasso, and one who ceaselessly absorbed influences throughout his life, will inevitably present an ever-changing face to the world. Hence, we have an apparently inexhaustible supply of exhibitions devoted... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Moscow: Isaac Levitan at the Tretyakov GallerySunday, 06 March 2011
The Tretyakov Gallery is currently housing a landmark exhibition to mark the 150th anniversary of Isaac Levitan. His glorious “mood landscapes” catch the understated beauty of provincial Russia, with an often gloomy philosophical perspective behind... Read more... |
Mona Hatoum: Bunker, White Cube Mason's YardWednesday, 02 March 2011
The latest exhibition from Beirut-born, sometime Turner Prize-nominee Mona Hatoum – best known for sending a camera through her inner tubes and projecting the results – explores themes of displacement and geographical and political tension. I know... Read more... |
An American Experiment: George Bellows and the Ashcan Painters, National GalleryTuesday, 01 March 2011
The National Gallery has done it again: a small but perfectly formed exhibition in their little Room 1, now a by-word for intelligent show-making. Something new, something revelatory, something profoundly beautiful – what more can the gallery-goer... Read more... |
The return of Edwyn Collins - the artistFriday, 25 February 2011
When musician Edwyn Collins, who had a massive hit both sides of the Atlantic with "A Girl Like You", and was also the front-man of Eighties band Orange Juice, suffered a double brain haemorrhage in 2005, he was initially unable to speak, read or... Read more... |
DIY taxidermist is live and armedThursday, 24 February 2011
Taxidermy – the rather morbid art of stuffing and mounting dead animals – has witnessed a rise in popularity not seen since its Victorian heyday in the last few years. Vintage dead artefacts are being given an afterlife in trendy lounge bars all... Read more... |
Hoppé Portraits: Society, Studio and Street, National Portrait GalleryWednesday, 23 February 2011
If you’ve seen pictures of the Ballets Russes, then you’ve seen Hoppé photographs. But then, if you’ve seen any society pictures from the 1920s and 1930s, then you’ve seen Hoppé. And famous writers. In fact, for portrait photography in Britain... Read more... |
Jan Gossaert’s Renaissance, National GalleryTuesday, 22 February 2011
Jan, or Janin? Gossart, or Gossaert? Or Mabuse? After a mere five centuries, we haven’t settled on a name quite yet (even for this exhibition: at the Metropolitan Museum, the same show spelt it “Gossart”). We don’t know where he was born,... Read more... |
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... |
Cob Studios & Gallery: Is north the new east?Thursday, 17 February 2011
A burgeoning North London art scene, which includes the Zabludowicz Collection in Chalk Farm and one of the London outposts of the Gagosian Gallery, suggests that the art world has the North firmly in its sights and tomorrow sees the opening of its... Read more... |
