The Fine Art Of Video Games – V&A – Edward Lucie-Smith
Video Games Rule! The Victoria and Albert Museum has just opened a large, ambitious exhibition devoted to video games.
7 September 2018
Archives: Reviews
Spellbound: Enchanted By Magical Thinking At The Ashmolean Museum – Paul Black
The Ashmolean Museum’s autumn exhibition Spellbound explores the timeless cross-cultural belief in magic through 180 objects – often strange and chilling – from the ritualistic, to the totemic – including crystal balls and mummified cats
5 September 2018
The Nearly Identical Stars Of Cindy Sherman – Zoltan Alexander
Sprüth Magers presents Cindy Sherman’s first solo exhibition in the UK since her last show in 2011, with a body of work inspired by fictional pre-war film stars. The “Untitled” series was first shown in Europe in Berlin last year.
31 August 2018
Drag Race: Destabilising Stable Social Conventions – Hayward Gallery – Edward Lucie-Smith
The new show at the Hayward Gallery’s Heni Project Space – which basically means just a fairly small room on the ground floor, to your right as you enter – leaves me in two minds.
23 August 2018
Britain’s Passion For Rembrandt Explored In New Scottish Exhibition – Clare Henry
Rembrandt can be a controversial figure. As the latest TV documentary tells us, the number of his paintings recognised as genuine varies with each passing shower.
21 August 2018
BP Portrait Award 2018 Following No Particular Path – Edward Lucie-Smith
The BP Portrait Award 2018 currently at the National Portrait Gallery offers interesting parallels with the London Open 2018 on view at Whitechapel.
19 August 2018
Art And The Consequences Of War Explored In Two Exhibitions
‘Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One’ at Tate Britain and ‘Magic Realism: Art in Weimar Germany 1919 – 33’ at Tate Modern are linked exhibitions.
18 August 2018
London Open: Desperately Seeking Duchamp – Whitechapel Gallery – Edward Lucie-Smith
The London Open at the Whitechapel Gallery is a triennial event. As the curators, Emily Butler and Cameron Foote, say in their catalogue introduction the London art world has gone through a great deal of change.
12 August 2018
Magic Realism: Objectivity In Weimar – Tate Modern – Edward Lucie-Smith
The Magic Realism Art In Weimar Germany 1919-33 show that just opened at Tate Modern is a welcome addition to what you can see at this major London institution
7 August 2018
Helaine Blumenfeld Translating Her Vision – Revd Jonathan Evens
Rupert Edwards, Director of the recent Sky Arts documentary ‘Hard Beauty’, describes the film’s subject, Helaine Blumenfeld, ‘Britain’s most successful sculptor you have never heard of.
5 August 2018
White Cube Summer A Whiter Shade Of Pale – Edward Lucie-Smith
Memory Palace, an anthology exhibition currently occupying both White Cube spaces, the big one in Bermondsey and the smaller one in Mason’s Yard St James’s
1 August 2018
Christopher Le Brun Tranquil And Elegant – Lisson Gallery – Edward Lucie-Smith
I went to see Christopher Le Brun’s new exhibition, a solo at one of the branches of the Lisson Gallery.
30 July 2018
Another Europe: Open-Air Photo Show King X
Boris stay away: this is outdoors, free and in-your-face pro-EU
29 July 2018
R.B. Kitaj – A Lost Leader – Edward Lucie-Smith
I’ve just been reading a remarkable book, published last year, that seems to have received almost no attention here in Britain, save for a brief anonymous review in The Guardian.
28 July 2018
Tomma Abts: A Delicate Dance Of Colours And Shapes – Edward Lucie-Smith
The show at the Serpentine Sackler marks another step forward in reputation for this German-born but British-resident painter, who has lived and worked in London since 1995, and who won the Turner Prize in 2006.
24 July 2018
Yves Klein: Kind Of Blue – Blenheim Palace – Edward Lucie-Smith
The presentation of work by Yves Klein in the staterooms of Blenheim Palace, the stateliest of all Britain’s stately homes, is part of a growing trend. The show follows hot on the heels of the Damien Hirst show, currently on view at Houghton Hall, another legendary stately.
23 July 2018
Sacred Noise: Explores Religion, Faith And Divinity – Revd Jonathan Evens
Sacred Noise explores themes of religion, faith and divinity in post-war and contemporary art through 30 works shown at Christie’s
22 July 2018
Roderic O’Conor Shadows And Stripes – National Gallery Of Ireland- Paul Carter Robinson
Roderic O’Conor is very much someone who was historically in the right place at the right time.
18 July 2018
Mythos Against Innovation – Charlie Smith London – Edward Lucie-Smith
Charlie Smith London has long been one of the most reliable innovative galleries in Shoreditch.
17 July 2018
Olga Tobreluts: What The Russians Are Doing Now – Edward Lucie-Smith
A fascinating visit to Trieste, for the opening of a show by Olga Tobreluts, an artist whom I’ve known personally since the fairly early 1990s – that is, since just after the Soviet Union fell apart.
15 July 2018
Banksy Goes Mayfair Pest Control Speaks Out
The appearance of a new Banksy in London can create quite a media frenzy.
11 July 2018
Hanne Kemfor The Sublime And The Ridiculous – Jude Cowan Montague
Hanne Kemfor has hung a few of her scribed, rubbed, trailed, scratched, brushed, gestured surfaces in the foyer of the Barbican Library.
10 July 2018
Two Sleepers: Bernice Sidney At Saatchi And Ali Nedaei, Cama Gallery – Edward Lucie-Smith
As the London art world heads towards its customary deep summer hiatus, various exhibitions manifest themselves that might not perhaps attract attention at a less competitive time.
4 July 2018
Sam Ivin: Physically Scratched Portraits Of Asylum Seekers Exhibited
Such a simple idea, yet one which combines prophecy and emotive impact as it speaks truth to power – Sam Ivin physically scratches portraits of asylum seekers erasing their eyes in order to convey the frustration engendered by the ‘hostile environment’ for migrants
2 July 2018
The Afterlife Of Michael Jackson In Pictures – Edward Lucie-Smith
When I first heard that the National Portrait Gallery here in London was planning to do an exhibition about Michael Jackson, the very famous but ultimately doomed African American pop star,
28 June 2018
Christine Borland: A Moving Tribute To Veterans Everywhere – Clare Henry
World War 1, was one of the bloodiest wars in all history, with a total of 41 million dead. The UK suffered over a million deaths with nearly 2 million injured. With 6% of the population affected, almost every street in Britain knew blood, gore, grief and loss.
27 June 2018
Christo’s Grave Monument In The Serpentine – Edward Lucie-Smith
What is a mastaba? Some dictionaries will tell you that the word means a bench, but more usually it’s a term used to describe an early Ancient Egyptian form of grave monument. A type that was in use even before they began to build the pyramids.
21 June 2018
Ed Ruscha And Thomas Cole – National Gallery Exhibits Two American Painters – Edward Lucie-Smith
Though we have plenty of experience of and access to American art here in Britain, this means chiefly American art from the 20th century.
20 June 2018
Brian Clarke: Sculpting With Photons At The Sainsbury Centre – Paul Black
The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary, and celebrated stained glass artist Brian Clarke can remember when the centre was merely a sketch on the back of a napkin.
19 June 2018
Frida Kahlo Artist or Cult Figure? Making Her Self Up at V&A
Frida Kahlo’s life is so interwoven with her art that there is little separation. Her biography is well-known, and so is her image. The brightly dressed artist in traditional Mexican clothes with her prominent monobrow. The pain and suffering she endured first through childhood polio and subsequently through a tram crash are well documented.
18 June 2018
Three Women Painting Big – Painting Loud – Newport Street Gallery – Edward Lucie-Smith
Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery has a new show entitled True Colours.
13 June 2018
RA’s 250th Anniversary A Triumph Of The Wall? – Edward Lucie-Smith
The R.A.’s celebration of its 250th-anniversary show has met with hosannas in the press, with maybe the loudest of all coming from those who see themselves as the declared foes and detractors of anything remotely conservative looking in the visual arts.
11 June 2018