Visual arts
Paul Delvaux, Blain Di DonnaTuesday, 02 July 2013
Paul Delvaux, the subject of a modest exhibition at the Blain Di Donna gallery in Mayfair, was JG Ballard’s favourite painter. The writer prized him for the creation of a complete world. Ballard found that world curious and inviting. He said he... Read more... |
Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life, Tate BritainSunday, 30 June 2013
It’s part of the Lowry myth – the myth of many famous artists, in fact, whether or not it actually happens to be true – that he’s never been taken seriously as an artist by critics or by cognoscenti. Even the co-curator of this exhibition, T.J Clark... Read more... |
Sturtevant: Leaps, Jumps and Bumps, Serpentine GallerySaturday, 29 June 2013
Her name sounds like a brand of cigarettes, and an aura of corporate anonymity seems remarkably apt for this American artist who specialises in replicating other people’s work and sampling clips from online video libraries. Borrowed from the BBC’s... Read more... |
Curiosity: Art & the Pleasures of Knowing, Turner ContemporaryTuesday, 25 June 2013
One of this summer’s seaside attractions in Margate is an overstuffed walrus, but day-trippers won’t find it in the town’s Museum of Monstrosities. The taxidermic freak, on loan from the Horniman Museum, is the star exhibit in the new show at Turner... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Copenhagen: Degas' Method, Ny Carlsberg GlyptotekSunday, 23 June 2013
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is famous for its collection of antiquities: Egyptian carvings, Greek statues and Roman sculpture form the heart of its collection. Indeed, its collection of Roman portrait busts are among the finest in the world. But the 19th... Read more... |
BP Portrait Award 2013, National Portrait GalleryThursday, 20 June 2013
One is increasingly struck by the oddity of an annual portrait prize, or at least I am. Imagine an annual still life award or an open competition for a major prize for abstract art. And imagine how formulaic and stale that would soon become. How... Read more... |
A Crisis of Brilliance, Dulwich Picture GalleryTuesday, 18 June 2013
The very tall, skeletal and formidable Henry Tonks (1862-1937), surgeon and anatomist, became one of the most decisive, influential, scathing and inspirational teachers in the history of visual education. At the Slade, in his second career as artist... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Istanbul: Art pours out of Gezi ParkSunday, 16 June 2013
I can’t wait to check out Istanbul’s galleries in a couple of years. Already endowed with an exploding arts and design scene, with Istanbul Modern in its unique location hanging over the Bosphorus, the retrospectively-looking Santral half integrated... Read more... |
Alternative Guide to the Universe, Hayward GalleryThursday, 13 June 2013
The Alternative Guide to the Universe, an exhibition of work mainly by self-taught practitioners, encourages one to speculate on the merits of orthodox art and science compared with the wild schemes pursued by these eccentrics and visionaries, some... Read more... |
Chagall: Modern Master, Tate LiverpoolWednesday, 12 June 2013
“Charming” is undoubtedly a double-edged word. Along with its perfumed allure, it carries a whiff of insincerity, of something slick and not quite earned. Add “whimsical” and you know you’re in danger of saccharine overload. Chagall is both,... Read more... |
Death in the Making: Photographs of War by Robert Capa, Atlas GalleryWednesday, 12 June 2013
How writers change their tune. When Robert Capa died in Vietnam in 1954, having trodden on a landmine, Ernest Hemingway was chief among those paying tribute. “It is bad luck for everybody that the percentages caught up with him,” he wrote. “It is... Read more... |
Anthony Caro: Park Avenue Series, Gagosian GalleryTuesday, 11 June 2013
Sir Anthony Caro, OM, is wowing them in Venice with his masterly retrospective, but for those of us who can’t get there, there is a generous helping of his characteristic late work in his first show in Gagosian’s airy large gallery. Late Caro (he’s... Read more... |
