What were the best exhibitions in 2017? What’s on my list of ten? The answers to this pair of questions really depend on which set of attitudes you choose to embrace. For me, choices No 1 and No 2 were nothing to do with contemporary art.
14 December 2017
How times have changed! In the 1980s, during the closing decade of the Soviet Union, Russian dissident artists, emerging on to the world stage under the increasingly benevolent gaze of Mr Gorbachev, were all the rage in the art worlds of the liberal West.
8 December 2017
It’s hard to complain about the big institutional shows on display just now
8 December 2017
Once lauded as the greatest British artist of the 20th century, Moore has – in recent years – been usurped by the great sadomasochistic gambler of old, Francis Bacon
2 December 2017
Rose Wylie is 83 years old. Her rise to fame has been fairly meteoric. Ten years ago few had heard of her, either in this, her native country, or abroad.
1 December 2017
Autumn is always a hectic yet enjoyable season for the art lover in France – my favourite time of year in the busy art world calendar. I had just recovered from the excitement of Frieze and Fiac when I decided to venture to the 21st edition of Paris Photo.
27 November 2017
The exhibition focuses on the idea of what is left of women when mothering.
26 November 2017
The new Modigliani show that just opened at Tate Modern is a very splendid affair, which doesn’t seem to offer a single weak link.
22 November 2017
Lubaina Himid’s significant starting point for her exhibition ‘Naming the Money’, at the Walker Art Gallery is
21 November 2017
Having been downgraded by the early 20th century Modernists, portraiture is now, a hundred years later, making a significant comeback.
20 November 2017
The outstanding Scandinavian artist Hannah Ryggen finally receives her first major UK presentation at Modern Art Oxford. This hidden gem has finally been revealed, and the artist’s socio-political commentary is as sharp now as it was daring in her own day.
18 November 2017
Art Riot: Post-Soviet Actionism is perhaps the most interesting and relevant exhibition and performance event mounted at The Saatchi Gallery since its launch in Chelsea in 2008.
17 November 2017
In a way, it’s a bit of surprise to find the Pre-Raphs, even some of the grander ones, on view at the National Gallery.
10 November 2017
Sean Scully has been a driving force in Abstract painting since the 1980s.
9 November 2017
The Red Star show comes rather late in a series of exhibitions here in Britain, designed to celebrate – or commemorate – the Russian Communist revolution of a century ago. The R.A.. was, as is now becoming usual, a step or two ahead of Tate.
8 November 2017
The Monochrome show at the National Gallery has gained less coverage and generated much less enthusiasm that the current Living Gods show at the British Museum.
7 November 2017
Like quite a lot of grand museum exhibitions in London recently, this new show at Tate Britain doesn’t quite tell its announced story.
1 November 2017
The new show, ‘Age of Terror: Art since 9/11’ on the top floor of the London branch of the Imperial War Museum struggles to define the idea of ‘war’ in contemporary circumstances. The IWM was founded in 1917
30 October 2017
The Sam Jackson-Derek Ridgers show currently on view at Charlie Smith London, and due to be seen again next April at the Galerie Heike Strelow in Frankfurt, carries with it a curious echo of the Soutine show, now on view at the Courtauld Gallery.
29 October 2017
London is awash with more must see international exhibitions than perhaps any other city in the world. Paul Carey-Kent is out and about visiting many of the great shows on offer.
29 October 2017
British artist James Alec Hardy is interested in the mysterious liminal space between knowing and not knowing, fact and fiction, and much of his work explores this in-between state through a practice he refers to as ‘perception management’ or put more simply, playing with the direction of gaze.
28 October 2017
The Cezanne portrait show at the National Portrait Gallery follows hot on the heels of the show of portraits by Soutine currently on view at the Courtauld.
26 October 2017
This compact, high-quality exhibition at the Courtauld offers a fascinating sociological and psychological puzzle. Entitled Soutine’s Portraits, and subtitled Cooks, Waiters and Bellboys, it features members of the inter-war underclass
23 October 2017
I was very excited to see this exhibition. As a young girl, I was always fascinated by these images of graceful art nouveau women. Mucha’s friendship with the actress Sarah Bernhardt was one of respect, creativity and beauty. In 1895 Mucha lived in Paris.
22 October 2017
Everything at Once is the hopeful title of the vast exhibition currently being presented by the Lisson Gallery + Vinyl Factory in the Store Studios space at 180 The Strand
19 October 2017
This Week, Edward Lucie-Smith Reviews Two contrasting Exhibitions At the Saatchi Gallery London ICONOCLASTS – Saatchi Gallery Until 7 January 2018 The Iconoclasts show… Read More
17 October 2017
Harrison Pearce meticulously constructs kinetic sculptural installations out of industrial machinery, silicon and rope.
16 October 2017
Such is the pressure on gallery space that quite important exhibitions now take place in all sorts of strange places. Sometimes, quite literally, they hide in plain sight. This is the case with the very substantial show of work by the late John Bellany, who died just over four years ago.
13 October 2017
Duchamp And Dali – Royal Academy: This provocative little show at the R.A., done in parallel with the same institutions big retrospective for Jaspers Johns, asks a number of questions about both the past history of the visual arts avant-garde, and about its current travails.
10 October 2017
The new show by Jake and Dinos Chapman at Blain-Southern – their first outing with this prestigious dealer, offers a full-on re-interpretation of Goya’s Disasters of War, plus, on pedestals in the centre of the room, some full-size bronze versions of suicide vests.
10 October 2017
The bronze apple of creation called ‘Creations’ that Alexander De Cadenet placed on the Henry Moore Alter in the centre of the St Stephen Walbrook Church, City of London invokes an understanding around the apple of desire. The piece allows for a confrontation with one’s own soul.
10 October 2017
The two Frieze art fairs held simultaneously in London every year are now, according to received opinion, the biggest temperature taking, temperature raising events in the whole of the UK art calendar.
6 October 2017
