Visual arts
Frank Auerbach, Tate BritainSaturday, 10 October 2015
A finely honed and spacious selection dating from the 1950s to now, looks in acute focus at the work – a scatter of drawings, a print, but almost entirely paintings – of Frank Auerbach, (b 1931). An only child, he came without his family, from... Read more... |
Goya: The Portraits, National GalleryWednesday, 07 October 2015
The brute nature of man in times of war, religious persecution and hypocrisy, and the destructive power of superstition. Francisco de Goya’s fame today largely rests on such themes, and they go a long way to explain just why he’s often considered... Read more... |
Turner Prize 2015, Tramway, GlasgowMonday, 05 October 2015
What’s going on? It seems the Turner Prize judges not only ran out of Scots to nominate this year, but actual artists. The socially enterprising architect-design collective Assemble don’t even call themselves artists so what must they make of the... Read more... |
Ben Rivers: Earth Needs More Magicians, Camden Arts CentreWednesday, 30 September 2015
Filmmaker Ben Rivers is drawn to outsiders and misfits, people who prefer solitude over society and live in shacks in the sticks rather than bungalows in the suburbs. Living in the Kent cottage she shared with her painter husband Roy Oxlade until... Read more... |
Ai Weiwei, Royal AcademyTuesday, 29 September 2015
Ai Weiwei’s first major survey in the UK is a better looking exhibition than I had anticipated, but what it gains in looks it sadly lacks in substance – backstory and information not being quite the same. It’s visually satisfying, since Ai initially... Read more... |
The World Goes Pop, Tate ModernSaturday, 19 September 2015
There’s no sign of Oldenburg, Warhol or Lichtenstein and British pioneers Eduardo Paolozzi and Peter Blake are notably absent from this gritty vision of Pop art. Only in the final room do we come face-to-face with a Campbell’s Tomato Soup tin, the... Read more... |
Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns, British MuseumThursday, 17 September 2015
Unlike Venice, where colour reigned supreme among artists such as Titian and Veronese, Florence was the city where drawing – disegno – was held up as the cornerstone of the artist’s education. Think of the well-defined musculature of Michelangelo’s... Read more... |
An Open Book: Chantal JoffeTuesday, 15 September 2015
Huge canvases, bold, expressive brushwork and a full-bodied, vibrant palette. Chantal Joffe’s figurative paintings are certainly striking and seductive. Citing American painter Alice Neel and American photographer Diane Arbus as two abiding... Read more... |
The Gap: Selected Abstract Art from Belgium, Parasol UnitMonday, 14 September 2015
From its title, you could be misled into dismissing this show as narrow and self-referential: a small exhibition in a small gallery curated by a Belgian artist concerned only with his own countrymen. In fact, it is something of a survey, featuring... Read more... |
Soup Cans and Superstars, BBC FourTuesday, 25 August 2015
Pop went the easel, and more, as we were offered a worldwide tour – New York, LA, London, Paris, Shanghai – of the art phenomenon of the past 50 years (still going strong worldwide). We were led by a wide-eyed interlocutor, the bright-eyed and bushy... Read more... |
An Open Book: Bruce McCallSaturday, 15 August 2015
Polo played in surplus First World War tanks; zeppelin-shooting as a gentlemanly leisure pursuit; the mighty vessel RMS Tyrannic, proud host of the Grand Ballroom Chariot Race and so safe "that she carries no insurance". These are just some of... Read more... |
An Open Book: Conrad ShawcrossSaturday, 08 August 2015
From complex machines, whirring busily but with no useful function, to structures that allude to the fundamental building blocks of the universe, Conrad Shawcross (born 1977) uses sculpture to explore the big ideas of philosophy and science. A... Read more... |
