Visual arts
Imagine… Antony Gormley: Being Human, BBC OneWednesday, 04 November 2015
Metal figures on the foreshore of Crosby Beach, Liverpool, set against a sunset, signify the preoccupations of Antony Gormley. The sculptor has been concerned consistently with the human figure, manifested in metal – lead or iron – casts of his own... Read more... |
David Jones, Pallant House Gallery, ChichesterWednesday, 04 November 2015
Switching between the orderly and the chaotic, David Jones’ depiction of Noah’s family building the ark immerses us in the drama of the moment while simultaneously holding us at some point out of time, to emphasise the story’s ancient roots.... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Mons: The turbulence of VerlaineSunday, 01 November 2015
Poetry is everywhere in Mons, with 10 kilometres of verse painted along the city streets. You’ll even find it on the walls of the city’s imposing 19th-century prison, at odds with the arrow slits, the crenellations, and the towering nets preventing... Read more... |
Sonica 2015, GlasgowSunday, 01 November 2015
Sometimes it’s visual art with a sonic slant; sometimes it’s music with a visual slant. Glasgow’s Sonica – created by producers Cryptic, now in its third year and bigger than ever – feels like a thoroughly modern festival, defying genre boundaries... Read more... |
In Sol LeWitt's head is a machine that makes artSaturday, 31 October 2015
Any exhibition of Sol LeWitt’s work raises an interesting question. Why go and see it if it’s the idea that’s the most important aspect of the work? In his 1967 essay, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art”, he clearly outlined the predominance of the idea... Read more... |
The Face of Britain by Simon Schama, BBC TwoThursday, 29 October 2015
This was the fifth and last in a series of hour-long programmes amounting to a vivid, varied and extraordinarily lively history of Britain. Although ostensibly a history of portraiture, the images have been hooks for Simon Schama, that most... Read more... |
Jean-Etienne Liotard, Royal AcademySunday, 25 October 2015
Unswervingly confident, relaxed and assured, the élite of the 18th century are currently arrayed on the walls of the Royal Academy, gazing down at us with the utmost assurance of their unassailable place in the world, bright eyed and dressed to... Read more... |
Lee Miller, Imperial War MuseumTuesday, 20 October 2015
What a woman. Does the news that Kate Winslet is to play the polymath Lee Miller in a Hollywood biopic mean a kind of sanctified apotheosis of Miller's quite extraordinary life? The story is so dramatic it transcends any fiction. Her path was... Read more... |
Giacometti, National Portrait GallerySunday, 18 October 2015
Any number of puzzling and fantastical stories were told by Alberto Giacometti in the construction of a personal mythology that helped secure his reputation as an archetypal artist of the avant-garde. Less heroic than the oft-quoted accounts of his... Read more... |
Peter Lanyon, Courtauld GalleryFriday, 16 October 2015
Free as air, but there was a very heavy price to pay for his ecstatic exploration of the sky by the Cornwall painter Peter Lanyon, who died in 1964, aged just 46, as a result of injuries received in a gliding accident. The Courtauld Gallery is... Read more... |
Risk, Turner ContemporaryWednesday, 14 October 2015
Yves Klein staged a photo of himself, in November 1960, swallow-diving into the air from a first floor window, arms outstretched like a bird. Leap into the Void was faked – the friends waiting with a tarpaulin on the pavement below were montaged out... Read more... |
Jimmie Durham, Serpentine GalleryMonday, 12 October 2015
The first thing you encounter is a ballot box bolted to the lid of a school desk; what or whom you might be voting for – apart from the hope of change – is not specified. In the eyes of Jimmie Durham, change is badly needed; in fact, most of the... Read more... |
