Visual Arts Reviews
Jo Baer, Camden Arts CentreSunday, 12 April 2015
At 86, Jo Baer is still painting vigorously. In the mid 1960s, she was an established New York Minimalist along with artists like Carl Andre and Sol Lewitt; but while they continued to explore abstraction, she changed tack – dramatically, or so it seemed. In the mid 1970s, she turned toward figuration declaring that the “naivety” of Minimalism (its refusal to engage with events in the real world) no longer made it relevant. Read more... |
Ellen Altfest, MK GalleryFriday, 10 April 2015
MK Gallery has a knack for showcasing mid-career artists before any other public space and this is Ellen Altfest’s first survey in the UK. There are 22 paintings here which, given their demands on her time, represent a significant proportion of the 44-year old’s output to date. Most of the pieces come from private collections, representing her commercial success with White Cube. Read more... |
Ravilious, Dulwich Picture GalleryMonday, 06 April 2015
Look at me, and think of England. This marvellous array of quirky, idiosyncratic watercolours by Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) from the 1930s until his premature death during wartime when his plane, on an air sea rescue mission for which he had volunteered, crashed in Iceland. It is full of memorable and haunting pictures. Read more... |
theartsdesk in New York: On Kawara at the Guggenheim MuseumSunday, 05 April 2015
On a snowy day in early spring in New York, the On Kawara – Silence show at the Guggenheim is unlikely to warm you up. His date paintings, postcards, telegrams and other coldly ur-conceptual accountings spiral up those famous white Frank Lloyd Wright stairs, seemingly ad infinitum. But it’s a powerful, hypnotic experience, one that seeps into your subconscious and becomes a meditation on time and space. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Bilbao: Niki de Saint Phalle at the Guggenheim MuseumThursday, 02 April 2015
This is work that wears its heart on its sleeve. That’s what gets you in the end in this big retrospective of the work of Niki de Saint Phalle. Read more... |
Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden, The Queen's GallerySaturday, 28 March 2015
The young, rather homely yet grand gentleman is lounging under a tree, behind him a formal knot garden. His costume is extravagant and rich, and his hat is charming. This exquisite 1590s miniature by Isaac Oliver, watercolour on vellum, titled indeed A Young Man Seated Under a Tree, is the first depiction in art of a knot garden; flowers and plants by the tree are meticulously detailed, and in the background is the classic Renaissance knot garden. Read more... |
Defining Beauty: The Body in Ancient Greek Art, British MuseumThursday, 26 March 2015
We think we know it when we see it. But how, pray, do we define beauty? The ancient Greeks thought they had the measure of it. In the 4th century BC, the “chief forms of beauty,” according to Aristotle, were “order, symmetry and clear delineation.” A century earlier, during the golden age of Athens, Polykleitos, one of the ancient world’s greatest sculptors, set out the precise ratios for the ideal male form in a treatise he called The Canon. Read more... |
Wellington: Triumphs, Politics and Passions, National Portrait GallerySunday, 22 March 2015
One masterpiece and two superb portraits both dominate and sum up in vivid fashion the complex personality, long life and astonishing trajectory of the first Duke of Wellington Read more... |
Joshua Reynolds, Wallace CollectionSaturday, 21 March 2015
The grand but domestic setting of Hertford House, home of the Wallace Collection, makes a fitting backdrop to an exhibition of paintings by Joshua Reynolds. The Marquesses of Hertford acquired some 25 paintings by Reynolds in the artist's lifetime, and after it, and the 12 that remain in the collection form the focus of this exhibition. Read more... |
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, Victoria & Albert MuseumWednesday, 18 March 2015
Alexander McQueen designed some dresses to die for. Dominating a wood-panelled room dedicated to Romantic Nationalism, in acknowledgement of his Scottish origins, is a crimson cape worn over a simple white dress. The high collar, puffed sleeves and long train lend the shimmering red taffeta a baronial splendour perfect for dramatic entrances. Read more... |
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