Visual arts
Tacita Dean, Frith Street GalleryTuesday, 17 September 2013
In 1970 the American artist Robert Smithson took several tonnes of mud and rock and built a jetty out into the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Instead of making a single, straight line, Smithson’s jetty curved round on itself and formed a spiral. Since no... Read more... |
Francis Bacon/Henry Moore: Flesh and Bone, Ashmolean MuseumSaturday, 14 September 2013
It is a shock, in this succinct exhibition of two British colossi of the past century, Henry Moore (1898-1986) and Francis Bacon (1909-1992), to be reminded of just how colossal and original are their achievements. We are shown their curiously... Read more... |
Jonathan Yeo Portraits, National Portrait GalleryWednesday, 11 September 2013
Grayson Perry is sitting pretty amid a swathe of soft-focus pink. Dressed as his alter ego Claire he sits on a pink bed with pink pillows, his pink ruched dress spread about him with its frilly underskirt on view. Placed on his lap are his... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Australia: The oldest civilisation on showSunday, 08 September 2013
London is by now festooned with images showing the back-end of a horse surmounted by a black figure holding a gun across his chest. The man's head is a square black mask – a rectangular slit in it fails to reveal the expected eyes, instead taking us... Read more... |
Museum HoursFriday, 06 September 2013
How we look at and value art, the stuff we accumulate around us, and our daily surroundings; how we look at and communicate with each other (or avoid doing so in the digital age); and if we do or don't see: these are some of the themes explored in... Read more... |
Rebuilding the World Trade Center, Channel 4Monday, 02 September 2013
“I see a lot of things up there, I get chills, see shadows. I don’t know if you call them ghosts or whatever, but you feel stuff. They’re trying to tell you something.” This is bolt boss Mohawk Joe “Flo” McComber, one of the many Mohawk iron workers... Read more... |
theartsdesk in the Hamptons: The $26 Million BarnWednesday, 28 August 2013
There’s never a good day for traffic in the Hamptons, and a Friday in August takes the biscuit. The Montauk Highway, also known as Route 27, was bumper to bumper on the way to the Parrish Art Museum, recently relocated from nearby Southampton... Read more... |
Bob Dylan: Face Value, National Portrait GallerySaturday, 24 August 2013
Face Value – heh, who’d have thought to come up with that title for an exhibition of portraits? Yeah, it’s not particularly clever, but there’s something of the contrarian mischief-maker in it all the same, for in the 50 years that Bob Dylan has... Read more... |
The Man Who Collected the World: William Burrell, BBC FourThursday, 22 August 2013
Had the wealthy William Burrell had a son, Glasgow might not have acquired the world-class art collection that the shipping entrepreneur amassed during his long life. But with the birth of a sole daughter came both ambitions and suspicion – he... Read more... |
Listed: Poems inspired by paintingsSunday, 18 August 2013
Poetry has always inspired artists. Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Dante’s Divine Comedy are two of the most enduring. And according to Art Everywhere, of which I will say little here but have written about elsewhere (see sidebar), the nation’s favourite... Read more... |
Mass Observation: This Is Your Photo, Photographers' GalleryWednesday, 14 August 2013
There was an unmistakable trend within Modernism to try and record absolutely everything about ordinary life. Think of Joyce and his attempt to set down all of Leopold Bloom’s thoughts, or the cubists and their use of even the tiniest scrap of... Read more... |
Opinion: Let's put a brake on this facile culture of 'celebration'Saturday, 10 August 2013
What happens when art is everywhere? Does it become wallpaper? Visual white noise? I'm struggling to see the point of Art Everywhere, though I can see it's a nice idea on paper: if the people won't come to the gallery, then the... Read more... |
