fri 29/08/2025

Visual arts

theASHtray: Homeland, Kings of Leon, and we need to talk about Aïda

So Homeland is here, and mid-ranking-CIA-operative Claire Danes is chasing Marine-Sergeant-and-possible-al-Qaeda-double-agent Damian Lewis all over the shop (but really only in their heads, so far), and neither of them is getting anywhere fast, so...

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Captain Scott: South for Science, National Museum Wales

In a year of centenary celebrations paying homage to Captain Scott and the men who accompanied him to Antarctica at the end of the Edwardian age, two exhibitions in London have assumed pride of place. The Natural History Museum places a spotlight on...

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Powerless Structures, Fig. 101, Fourth Plinth

Superficially it's the very picture of innocence. A boy clings to his wooden steed, one hand clutching the neck, the other flying free. Few Fourth Plinth commissions will be more easily co-opted for official public duty. Hope, youth, the exultation...

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Jeremy Deller: Joy in People, Hayward Gallery

As he readily acknowledges himself, Jeremy Deller can’t paint and he can’t draw, so he never went to art school. For many artists of his generation (he’s 46), this lack of traditionally based skills seems not to have presented a problem. But Deller...

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Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam, British Museum

Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam is an exhibition about faith that even an avowed atheist might find rather moving. The last of the British Museum’s series of in-depth exhibitions exploring aspects of the three great Abrahamic religions, the...

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Mondrian || Nicholson in Parallel, The Courtauld Gallery

Conversations between artists both verbal and visual are the flavour of the month: the big voice of Picasso is almost but not quite drowning out a septet of British artists over at Tate Britain. Now joining the chorus is a fascinating exploration of...

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Lucian Freud: Painted Life, BBC Two

He was uncompromising, honest, personal. He didn't like doing what he was told. He never followed fashion. Is this an accurate picture of Lucian Freud, or is it a description of almost every great artist who ever lived? The intensely banal voiceover...

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theASHtray: Whitney, bin men, and the NPG's 'incautious' acquisitions

Right, out with it: who else had their Valentine’s dinner-out ruined by 36 consecutive requests for Whitney Houston? Not even the entire back-catalogue, either: just “(And I-ee-I-ee-) I…”, over and over.I mean, the basic message is all right, I...

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Rose Wylie: Jerwood Gallery, Hastings

The inaugural exhibition of Jerwood's new gallery featuring thepaintings of Rose Wylie. http://bit.ly/o1YspH

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Jeremy Deller: Joy In People

A major survey of artist, parade organiser, cultural archivis t and Turner Prize-winner Jeremy Deller. The survey will reconstruct Open B edroom, 1993, Deller's first exhibition which was held in his parent's ho use when they were away on holiday....

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Picasso and Modern British Art, Tate Britain

Pablo Picasso is the presiding genius of 20th century art, the most influential artist in the modern period, lauded for his protean inventiveness, originality, individuality and overwhelming productivity. In 1934 poet Geoffrey Grigson declared that...

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Artists send Valentine's Love Letter to the Earth

A Valentine’s card to the Earth donated by artists might seem a bit schlocky, even if cynicism is not the appropriate emotion on Valentine's Day. This is, however, no woolly-headed stunt, but part of dynamic lawyer Polly Higgins’s serious and - who...

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