27 February 2012
Lucian Freud: Drawings @ Blain/Southern – REVIEW ‘Everything is autobiographical. Everything is a portrait’ Freud claimed of his own work. Yet the National Portrait Gallery has decided that their stock-in-trade must not be diluted. Only conventional portraits may grace their walls – so the rest is to be found at Blain Southern. From the meticulously […]
23 February 2012
New Fourth Plinth sculpture by Elmgreen & Dragset unveiled today by Joanna Lumley; but what does it all mean? The new artwork to top Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth was revealed today, with Joanna Lumley pulling the curtain to unveil a giant golden sculpture of a boy upon a rocking horse; ‘our golden boy on […]
22 February 2012
Yayoi Kusama: New Paintings @ Victoria Miro – REVIEW To coincide with the major retrospective of Yayoi Kusama’s work currently showing at Tate Modern, Victoria Miro – the gallery that represents Kusama in the UK – has put on a small exhibition of some of her most recent work. While there are three sculptures on […]
21 February 2012
Jeremy Deller: Joy in People @ Hayward Gallery – REVIEW Joy in People is the world’s first retrospective of Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller – an artist whose work typically eschews the gallery space for the public, and rejects the ‘high’ trappings of visual culture for the popular (hence the name of the exhibition). Given […]
17 February 2012
Paul Carey-Kent Reviews ‘I AM THE LAW’ at Ritter/Zamet, London: 18 Jan – 31 March 2012 This show brings together two naturally collaborative counter-cultural figures with records of provocation in London, Berlin and New York: painter, writer and curator Rupert Goldsworthy and sound artist Mark Stewart, known as a collagist and pioneer of industrial hip […]
15 February 2012
Mondrian//Nicholson: In Parallel @ Courtauld Gallery – REVIEW The two modernist painters Piet Mondrian – one of world’s most celebrated 20th century artists –, and our very own Ben Nicholson – a key figure in British art history – are an obvious pairing. Both artists (during the 1930s and 40s, at least) were leading exponents […]
13 February 2012
Picasso & Modern British Art @ Tate Britain – REVIEW It pays to be a little wary of the ‘[artist] and [category].’ exhibition format, whereby the name of a superstar artist (Rothko, Van Gogh, Warhol etc) is followed by a general category (‘Britain’, ‘the Modern Age’, ‘Modern Art’, etc). Too often it points to the […]
9 February 2012
East Wing X: Material Matters @ Courtauld Institute of Art – REVIEW Every other year, coming on for two decades, the Courtauld Institute of Art has given over its East Wing to a student-run exhibition of contemporary art. It represents a sort of test run for the curators of the future, currently being incubated in […]
8 February 2012
Blockbuster Lucian Freud Portraits exhibition opens at the National Portrait Gallery, tracing a life-time’s encounter with human flesh The press view for Lucian Freud’s exhibition of Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery was infused with all the mania one would expect from such a blockbuster. Including over 130 works – from a 1940 portrait of his […]
7 February 2012
Major retrospective for Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern reveals fundamental continuity behind the dazzling diversity of a six decade career ‘This is the press of London’, curator Frances Morris explained to an overwhelmed Yayoi Kusama upon the artist’s unexpected arrival midway through Tate Director Chris Dercon’s verbal introduction to her major retrospective; ‘they have all […]
6 February 2012
James Ferris: 5050 @ Limoncello – INTERVIEW & REVIEW So here’s a novel idea: an exhibition of 100 paintings, with the first work to be sold and packed-up for £1, and each subsequent sale to be priced according to its place in the order of purchase – with the second buyer paying £2, the third […]
3 February 2012
The VIP Art Fair – the the world’s first exclusively online art fair – opens to the public today: but is it a viable alternative to the real thing? The VIP Art Fair – the world’s first exclusively online art fair – has today opened to the public. With the aim of ‘translating the experience […]
2 February 2012
The Body in Women’s Art Now: Part 3 – ReCreation @ Rollo Contemporary – REVIEW Contemporary artists have been rather slow on the up-take when it comes to contemporary media – perhaps disregarding the messy world (wide web) of the internet happenings as the realm of spotty teens rather than rather than of discourse-orientated artistes. […]
31 January 2012
REVIEW – David Shrigley’s major new exhibition Brain Activity reveals depth beneath the one-liner Turns out, I had David Shrigley all wrong. No longer can I dismiss him as the pseudo-artist cartoonist – appealing to those mildly middle-aged men, young at heart, that cling onto 90s sulky ‘cool’ in beer-drinking ladulthood –, his work […]
30 January 2012
Tate Britain’s Migrations brings together an engaging collection of works from over a period of 500 years, but lacks real coherence Migrations is a major new exhibition at Tate Britain setting out to explore the ways in which British art has been shaped by incoming culture and peoples. The exhibition has been constructed from works […]
27 January 2012
Turner and the Elements exhibition arrives at Margate’s Turner Contemporary, and reminds us of the literal truth in the expression; ‘Turner was a painter of light’ With this exhibition of over 80 paintings at Margate’ Turner Contemporary, J.M.W Turner has come home: not only home to Love Lane where he was schooled; and home, also, […]
25 January 2012
Raphael Hefti @ Camden Arts Centre – REVIEW Swiss artist Raphael Hefti’s first solo show in the UK is both smart and visually beguiling. Claiming to have spent a decade ‘subverting’ and ‘interfering’ with material processes, the fruits of these labours are well worth a look, and act as an irreverent counterpart to the intensity […]
25 January 2012
Hanne Darboven @ Camden Arts Centre – REVIEW The first UK solo exhibition of the late German artist Hanne Darboven is daunting, overwhelming, and completely monumental. Following an internal and deeply personal logic, the artist works with all forms of letters, numbers, graphs, musical scores and calendars to question the human construction and experience of […]
25 January 2012
Working Papers: Donald Judd Drawings, 1963-93 @ Spruth Magers – REVIEW A giant of American Minimalism, and an early advocate of the idea that it is the end, and not the means of art, that is its merit – we have here a fascinating insight into Donald Judd’s mind at work. Curated by Peter Ballantine, […]
25 January 2012
Pietro Ruffo: The Political Gymnasium @ Blain/Southern – REVIEW Italian artist Pietro Ruffo, having recently been awarded the Premio Cairo Award and the New York Prize, draws on research he conducted whilst a fellow at Columbia University to give us a fully politico-philosophical assault on the senses. […]
23 January 2012
Gary Hume: The Indifferent Owl @ White Cube – REVIEW The White Cube (Mason’s Yard and Hoxton Square) presents us with an exhibition of new works by Gary Hume – an artist ever-faithful to his trademark high-gloss lacquer paint on aluminum, and with a deepening interest in sculpture. Hume made his name, alongside the other […]
19 January 2012
Zarina Bhimji @ Whitechapel Gallery – REVIEW Zarina Bhimji, tjhe Uganda-born artist nominated for the 2007 Turner Prize, presents an incredible selection of work from the last 25 year, including the premiere of her new film ‘Yellow Patch’, at the Whitechapel Gallery. The exhibition opens with Bhimji’s new film on Indian-African trade history, ‘Yellow […]
18 January 2012
Alberto Burri: Form and Matter @ Estorick Collection – REVIEW This small but compact exhibition at the Estorick Collection presents the work of Italian artist Alberto Burri (1915-1995), and is the first solo show of his work held in the UK for sixty years. The purpose of this exhibition, at least in part, is to […]
17 January 2012
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture – REVIEW So here it is. The first major blockbuster exhibition of 2012, and the event kicking-off the London Cultural Olympiad – David Hockney: A Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy of Arts. Bringing together over 150 works, the majority of which have been created in the last 8 years, […]
16 January 2012
January exhibitions at the AA – REVIEW There are two new exhibitions now showing at the Architectural Association: H.O.R.T.U.S. – an installation by ecoLogicStudio (on the first floor, next door to the café) – and Critical Territories, which presents the work of two experimental interdisciplinary practices, Groundlab and Plasma Studio (in the ground floor gallery […]
16 January 2012
We review the January exhibitions at London’s Zabludowicz Collection Currently showing at the Zabludowicz Collection is ‘Future Map’ – a survey of the best talent to graduate from the University of the Arts London’s six colleges – and ‘Zabludowicz Collection Invites… Benedict Drew’ – a new initiative where the collection selects a young, currently un-represented […]
13 January 2012
Review of Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn (Ceramic Works, 5000 BC – AD 2010) at the V&A Having just been named third in Time magazine’s Person of the Year, there has never been a better time for this exhibition of Ai Weiwei’s ceramics. Oddly, then, the V&A have given it a rather muted reception, neither advertising […]
12 January 2012
Gagosian opens 11 simultaneous exhibitions of Damien Hirst’s Spot Paintings internationally: we review the London offering Damien Hirst has been given a hard time throughout his career, whether its David Hockney lashing out at the army of assistants working for Hirst Inc., or one of the many critics lampooning his work as lightweight one-liners. So […]
15 December 2011
The ICA is overflowing with young hopefuls eager to make waves; ArtLyst tests the water As Virginia Woolf claimed of books, perhaps so with works of art; ‘If they need shoring up by a preface here, an introduction there, they have no more right to exist than a table that needs a wad of paper […]
9 December 2011
White Cube Bermondsey stages UK’s largest ever Anselm Kiefer exhibition to great effect Almost three years after his last show at White Cube, and the legendary sculpture/painter Anselm Kiefer is back – and back with a vengeance. Sprawling across 11,000 sq ft of crisp white gallery space, ‘Il Mistero delle Cattedrali’ is the largest ever […]
8 December 2011
French Conceptual artist Daniel Buren returns to UK to remind us what all the fuss is about Daniel Buren: One Thing To Another brings everything that makes the work so affecting outdoors, indoors; and, in process, transforms the interior rooms of the Lisson gallery into what feels like a series of exterior spaces. His first […]
8 December 2011
‘One knows that, by some accidental brushmarks, suddenly appearance comes in with a vividness that no accepted way of doing things would have brought about’ – Francis Bacon This, according to Francis Bacon, is ‘the mystery of appearance in the mystery of making’ – the title and structuring concept for the major new exhibition of […]