Visual arts
Visual art at Brighton Festival - disturbing, playful, but ultimately rudderlessThursday, 18 May 2017
As befits a festival with a spoken word artist as its guest curator, storytelling is at the heart of the visual arts offer in the 2017 Brighton Festival. It is not known if performance poet Kate Tempest had a hand in commissioning these four shows,... Read more... |
57th Venice Biennale review - riveting and bewilderingWednesday, 17 May 2017
Riveting and bewildering, the 57th Venice Biennale has just opened its myriad doors to the public with several thousand exhibits spread across Venice and its islands. The preview days were thronged with the art world and its coterie of high and low... Read more... |
Canaletto & the Art of Venice, The Queen's Gallery - previewTuesday, 16 May 2017
Even today, the perception of Venice as a city only half-rooted in mundane reality owes a great deal to Canaletto (1697-1768), an artist who made his name producing paintings for English tourists visiting Italy in the 18th century. Recognisable... Read more... |
Alberto Giacometti, Tate ModernSaturday, 13 May 2017
Chain-smoking and charismatic, the painter, sculptor, draughtsman and printmaker Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) lived much of his life in Paris from his arrival there in his twenties. He was just in time for post-war cubism and pre-war surrealism,... Read more... |
Picasso: Minotaurs and Matadors, GagosianThursday, 11 May 2017
At 93, Picasso’s revered biographer, Sir John Richardson, has curated a vital new celebration of the artist’s life and work, focusing on one of his most enduring and delightful subjects, the Minotaur. The exhibition at the Gagosian in fact charts... Read more... |
Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains, V&A review – from innocence to experience and beyondWednesday, 10 May 2017
The title of this exhibition is typical of Pink Floyd’s mordant view of the world, not to mention their sepulchral sense of humour. Needless to say, the band that took stage and studio perfectionism to unprecedented lengths have pushed the boat out... Read more... |
theartsdesk at The Hospital ClubWednesday, 03 May 2017
The Arts Desk is delighted to announce a new partnership with The Hospital Club in Covent Garden. There are plenty of private members club in central London, but The Hospital Club is uniquely a creative hub with its own television studio,... Read more... |
Richard Long: Earth Sky, Houghton HallSunday, 30 April 2017
“I’m a great opportunist,” says Richard Long, a statement that for all its economy brims with contradictions and possibilities. While his sculptures made in wild and far-flung places often look stumbled-upon, incidental, his method is so careful and... Read more... |
Chris Ofili, National GalleryWednesday, 26 April 2017
Flashes of intense colour pulse rhythmically across the piece, contrasting with delicate washes and pools of watery pigment that seem to quiver plumply, set to run uncontrollably at any moment. Lines drawn fast and bold describe four figures, while... Read more... |
Queer British Art 1861-1967, Tate BritainThursday, 20 April 2017
"Good for the history of music, but not for music," one of Prokofiev's professors at the St Petersburg Conservatoire used to say of artistically dubious works which created a splash, according to the composer's diaries. I'm not even sure that this... Read more... |
Michelangelo's Madonna and ChildSunday, 16 April 2017
Michelangelo's Taddei tondo, which depicts the Madonna and Child with the Infant St John in a rocky landscape, is the only Michelangelo marble in Britain. Currently one of the stars of the National Gallery's Michelangelo & Sebastiano show, it is... Read more... |
Geta Bratescu, Camden Arts CentreThursday, 13 April 2017
What a delight to be introduced to an artist whom you have never heard of and whose work is inspirational. Born in Romania in 1926, Geta Brătescu spent much of her life enduring the Soviet occupation of her country, then the repressive regime of... Read more... |
