Visual arts
Tacita Dean: Craneway Event, Frith Street GalleryMonday, 31 May 2010
Silhouetted against the sparkling waters of San Francisco Bay, a pelican surveys the scene from a quayside bollard, then takes flight. The beautiful opening shot of Tacita Dean’s Craneway Event establishes a mood of elegiac tranquility. We are at... Read more... |
David Nash, Yorkshire Sculpture ParkSaturday, 29 May 2010
Wood is a mysterious substance. We do not make it, it makes itself. It is useful to us, alive and dead. Without it, our history would not be the same. But it is so ever-present, so much a part of that history, that we rarely see the wood... Read more... |
Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera, Tate ModernSaturday, 29 May 2010
In the week that Sarah Ferguson was caught on a secret camera receiving a stash of $40,000 from News of the World journalists, Tate Modern launched this ambitious and excitingly diverse photography exhibition. Had the meeting been earlier, the... Read more... |
Picasso Special - Picasso: Peace and Freedom, Tate LiverpoolMonday, 24 May 2010
Picasso the genius, the sensualist, the womaniser, the priapic beast. This much we think we know of the great Spanish artist. But how about Picasso the political activist? Picasso the supporter of women’s causes? Picasso the… feminist? Oh, yes, that... Read more... |
Art Gallery: Picasso Special - The Mediterranean YearsMonday, 24 May 2010
The war was over, Picasso was finally free to leave the privations of Paris behind him and to spend more time in the South of France, marking a return to his Mediterranean heritage. The Gagosian Gallery’s exhibition, curated by Picasso’s... Read more... |
Victory on the Fourth PlinthFriday, 21 May 2010
From his tall column in Trafalgar Square, Admiral Lord Nelson won’t be able to glimpse the new work on the Fourth Plinth, since he faces the other way. But of all the works that have occupied this space – from Marc Quinn’s Alison Lapper Pregnant, to... Read more... |
Fashion pop ups in unlikely placesThursday, 20 May 2010
While wandering back from a meeting with a hedgie on Haymarket, I noticed a banner emblazoned with the logo of Browns, clothes shop to the well heeled (to mix metaphors), above the entrance to what appeared to be a building site. It was indeed a... Read more... |
Bridget Riley: From Life, National Portrait GalleryThursday, 20 May 2010
Forget about art “being about the idea” for a moment. Drawing from life is still considered by many to be the litmus test for proper artistic skill, or at least the foundation from which great art can arise. And so the enquiry, “But can he really... Read more... |
the Artes Mundi Award goes to...Thursday, 20 May 2010
Great excitement at the Artes Mundi Awards in Cardiff’s National Museum last night as the UK’s largest cash prize for the winner of any UK contemporary art competition - a staggering £40,000 - was presented to the Israeli artist Yael Bartana. Two... Read more... |
The Genius of Design: Designs for Living, BBC TwoSunday, 16 May 2010
Does form always have to follow function? Is ornamentation really such a heinous crime? Or is Modernism itself the enemy of the people? The second part of this excellent five-part series – fab archive footage, great interviews with designers young... Read more... |
Tate Modern celebrates independentsFriday, 14 May 2010
Since its millennium opening, Tate Modern has managed to transform the landscape for the contemporary visual arts in Britain. This week it celebrates its 10th anniversary by inviting 70 of the world’s most innovative, independent art spaces to take... Read more... |
The Printed Image in China, British MuseumWednesday, 12 May 2010
The British Museum’s current exhibition of 15th-century works on paper, Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance Drawings, explores the increasing importance of the preparatory sketch in the development of western art. Central to that... Read more... |
