Visual arts
First Person: Portrait of BritainMonday, 05 September 2016
This exhibition includes one of my images, so I hesitated when I was asked to write about it – but I only hesitated for a moment. I have learned that if you are reluctant to promote your own work other people are even more inclined in that direction... Read more... |
Inside: Artists and Writers in Reading PrisonMonday, 05 September 2016
“Outside the day may be blue and gold, but the light that creeps down through the thickly-muffled glass of the small iron-barred window beneath which one sits is grey and niggard. It is always twilight in one’s cell, as it is always midnight in one’... Read more... |
London's BurningSunday, 04 September 2016
It has been 350 years since the Great Fire of London. A festival of art and ideas by Artichoke, the company behind Lumiere London, has brought a series of free, inventive installations and performances to the capital. These curated events and live... Read more... |
Björk Digital, Somerset HouseThursday, 01 September 2016
Australia and Japan were first to host Björk Digital, but it lands at London’s Somerset House with fresh, never-before-seen work. The immersive virtual reality exhibition collates several digital- and film-based works born from Björk's critically... Read more... |
Colour, Fitzwilliam Museum, CambridgeFriday, 12 August 2016
It is sobering to think that the medieval and Renaissance paintings that fill our galleries represent just a fraction of the artistic output of that period. Panel paintings – not to mention exquisitely fragile wall paintings – have for the most part... Read more... |
Stubbs and the Wild, Holburne Museum, BathTuesday, 02 August 2016
A gorgeous white horse with flowing mane, poised and alert in a rocky landscape next to a watchful lion, is an extraordinary study of suppressed tension. A wistful North American moose, a herd animal living on its own on the Duke of Richmond’s... Read more... |
William Eggleston Portraits, National Portrait GallerySaturday, 23 July 2016
American photographer William Eggleston is famous for dedicating himself to colour photography at a time when it was still considered kitsch – acceptable for wedding and Christening photos, but not much else. The best known example of his embrace of... Read more... |
Winifred Knights, Dulwich Picture GalleryFriday, 22 July 2016
Winifred Knights (1899-1947) was an impeccable draughtsman: her portrait drawings are compelling. She deployed fine webs of lines, her sure hand applying gradated pressure resulting in mesmerising studies of people that are hypnotically fascinating... Read more... |
Ragnar Kjartansson, Barbican Art GalleryMonday, 18 July 2016
A neon sign over the Barbican’s Silk Street entrance reads Scandinavian Pain. Following its victory over us in Euro 16, it seems that Iceland is now drenching us with its special brand of melancholy. Things are not that simple, of course. In his... Read more... |
The Banker's Guide to the Art Market, BBC FourFriday, 15 July 2016
This programme was not ironic, humorous or in any way lighthearted. I’m fairly sure of that, but worry that perhaps I’ve missed the joke. A withering take-down or a meaty exposé of the corruption and excess of the extremely wealthy would have... Read more... |
Les Rencontres d'Arles 2016Friday, 08 July 2016
Nous avons Brexité but we are still welcome at the 47th Rencontres d'Arles. Each summer this beautiful French town gives itself over to an international photography festival which this year features around 40 exhibitions of varying sizes with... Read more... |
Georgia O’Keeffe, Tate ModernTuesday, 05 July 2016
It's 100 years since Georgia O’Keeffe first showed at Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery in New York, a hub of avant-garde activity, and the opening room of this major retrospective revisits the 1916 exhibition. Inspired by Arthur Dow’s emphasis on... Read more... |
