All art is perforce autobiography, and every picture tells a story. How could it be otherwise? No outstanding artist almost literally makes visual these underlying possibilities more than Paula Rego.
18 June 2019
Born in 1881, Natalia Goncharova was a full generation older than Lee Krasner and came from a very different background from that of Krasner’s Jewish parentage.
18 June 2019
Kiss My Genders at the Hayward Gallery curated by Vincent Honore is a dynamic voyage and vivacious celebration of infinite representations of gender-diversity, gender non-conformity, androgyny and gender-subversion over the course of 50 years, featuring a mélange of 100 artworks by 35 international artists.
17 June 2019
The highly anticipated first UK exhibition of Keith Haring’s work has opened at Tate Liverpool. It is vast, covering most aspects of his work and career. This was my first experience seeing so many pieces by this seminal figure from the 1980s,’ in the flesh, so I was curious to learn more about the man.
16 June 2019
In his book, God in the Gallery: A Christian Approach to Modern Art Daniel Siedell suggests that many works of modern and contemporary art are ‘poignant altars to the unknown god in aesthetic form.’
15 June 2019
Once again the National Gallery offers a small, free, finely crafted show devoted to an Old Master painter that few people will know much – or indeed – anything about. In this case, to works by Bartolome Bermejo (c.1440-c. 1501).
15 June 2019
I’ve just read a piece on the web complaining that the one area of the contemporary art world where gender equality is making no progress is in the exhibition programmes of big commercial galleries.
11 June 2019
The new Francis Bacon show at Gagosian Grosvenor Hill is something of a landmark event. It contains a sumptuous array… Read More
10 June 2019
If you want to take the temperature of the London art world, here are two places to do so. One is the show for Keith Tyson, at Hauser & Wirth. The other is an exhibition for Enrique Martinez Celaya at Blain/Southern. These two dealers rank very high amongst the international commercial spaces in London.
9 June 2019
I was looking at the tapestries with painted and sewn figures, the colourful designs of pioneering activist and artist Faith Ringgold when I heard a discussion taking place in the next gallery room.
8 June 2019
The catch-up continues: two more female artists, from different phases of the now safely defunct Modern Movement, are now being given their due. They are Lee Krasner, with a solo show at the Barbican; and Natalia Goncharova, at Tate Modern. Both of these were considerable talents. Were they game-changers? That, I think, is a slightly different question.
6 June 2019
It’s rare to walk into an exhibition and be bowled over (forgive the pun). To encounter work that touches the heart as well as the mind in these insouciant times. Frank Bowling’s exhibition at Tate Britain is one such rare show, reminding us of what painting can do.
2 June 2019
London’s posher galleries offer exhibitions of all kinds right now, but they tend to have a slightly depressing characteristic in common. The artists concerned are usually either very senior or dead. Few of them are British. The days when the YBAs dominated the British art scene are long over. In a way, this is a tribute to the cosmopolitanism of today’s London art world.
28 May 2019
It is bold of the British Museum to embark on an exhibition of Japanese Manga in their most significant and grandest temporary exhibition space – the one right at the back of the building, on the ground floor.
26 May 2019
Venice, the Pentland Hills, Prince Charles?” They may not have a lot in common, but all have provided Vicky Crowe with significant inspiration. They also encapsulate her three main concerns: still life, landscape and portraiture. That she excels in each is a cause for admiration and astonishment!
26 May 2019
I can’t see an Anish Kapoor exhibition at the moment. I can’t talk about Anish Kapoor at the moment. Not without the first thing on my mind being that infamous black paint copyright purchase.
25 May 2019
This will be a great year of Leonardo celebrations because 2019 marks five centuries since the great artist died and Leonardo is now one of the great monuments of Western culture. Various countries are squabbling over who can do his memory the most honour.
25 May 2019
Right now, the Curve Gallery at the Barbican has a big show entitled More Than Human that seems exceptionally relevant, not so much to what is happening in the visual arts right now, as to what seems likely to happen. Its theme is AI (artificial intelligence).
20 May 2019
Self-taught artist and avant-garde predecessor to the Arte Povera movement, Piero Manzoni was born to an aristocratic family in Soncino, Italy in 1933.
18 May 2019
May you live in interesting times is the overarching theme of this year’s Biennale. Dystopia and dissonance are everywhere played out in the themes of climate change and post-human CGI that take us to some dark places.
14 May 2019
Whatever happened to Anthony Caro? In Jonathan Jones’ new book about the history of British art from Hogarth to Banksy,… Read More
14 May 2019
Jonathan Jones’ new book from Laurence King Publishing is a quality job. Entitled Sensations, it bears on its back cover a recommendation from none other than Tracey Emin, which reads as follows:“I never loved Jonathan’s writing when he slagged my work off! He is a true thinker: a brilliant art historian who can back up his opinion with more than just criticism.”
5 May 2019
In a trough after its immediately pre-Easter excitements – Rembrandt at Gagosian, Sean Scully at the NG – the London art world looks faintly dreary right now.
2 May 2019
I,I,I,I,I,I,I Kathy Acker is a fitting title for this quasi-retrospective exhibition which opened at the ICA on Tuesday night. In fact, it would have been even more spot on to have called the show Me,Me,Me,Me,Me,Me,Me Kathy Acker.
1 May 2019
Chantal Joffe Victoria Miro London: In his seminal 1972 book Ways of Seeing, the late John Berger claimed that: ‘A woman must continually watch herself…From earliest childhood, she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself…
27 April 2019
Currently, Huxley Parlour in Swallow Street, a location better known for its restaurants rather than for art, has a show rather mysteriously entitled Figurative Abstraction in Contemporary Painting.
23 April 2019
At first glance, the Sean Scully show that just opened at the National Gallery in London couldn’t be more different from the exhibition not far away at Gagosian Grosvenor Hill. It features just one artist, rather than a series of well-known names.
16 April 2019
Kashmiri born, London based Raqib Shaw has created his first dazzlingly immersive and multicultural landscape series.
14 April 2019
The Gerhard Richter show currently in the smaller of Gagosian’s three London galleries is maybe best described as “a bit of a tease”.
13 April 2019
A new exhibition of work by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch now at the British Museum claims to be the biggest ever devoted to his work here in Britain.
11 April 2019
Unit London & their emergence as a leading gallery brand on Instagram, (355K people can’t be that wrong?) are a serious force to be reckoned with. Surprisingly very few galleries have attempted to learn from these young social wizards, despite the fact they’ve proven how effective their approach to selling art via social media can be. The second solo show of the Flemish artist Johan Van Mullem is on display in the gallery until 13 April.
11 April 2019
The GHost Parlour, Sarah Sparkes’ solo exhibition at New Art Projects London, intimately explores the theme of ghosts and spirits, a subject which has fascinated Sparkes and been the centre of her artistic practice for many years.
10 April 2019
