contemporary art
Florence Hallett
Art, design and craft is such a broad category that it is no surprise – even less a criticism – that most of the nominees comfortably inhabit just one of these areas of endeavour. Nominated principally in recognition of The Caged Bird’s Song, made in collaboration with Chris Ofili over a period of two and a half years and the star of a recent exhibition at the National Gallery, Dovecot Tapestry Studio is unique in answering happily to art, design and craft and can genuinely claim its place as a leading light in each.Designed by one of our most celebrated contemporary artists, The Caged Bird’s Read more ...
Sarah Kent
Rose Finn-Kelcey was one of the most interesting and original artists of her generation. Yet when she died in 2014 at the age of 69, she could have disappeared from view if she not spent the last few years of her life assembling a monograph about her work. It's a beautiful book that helps you appreciate the range and complexity of a practice that might otherwise be too elusive and too mercurial to grasp fully.Modern Art Oxford’s partial retrospective similarly brings Finn-Kelcey’s work into focus, and we can hope that it will kickstart the process of acknowledging her importance. Her work is Read more ...
Sarah Kent
The most popular exhibition of a living artist ever held at the Tate was David Hockney’s recent retrospective, which attracted 478,082 visitors. If Grayson Perry is to top that, as the title of his Serpentine Gallery show optimistically predicts, his exhibition will have to attract a throng of 5,900 visitors a day!Even though his current Channel 4 series Divided Britain and earlier ones like In the Best Possible Taste and All Man have turned him into a household name, I doubt if Perry’s celebrity status gives him that much pulling power. The exhibition title is tongue-in-cheek, of course, but Read more ...
Mark Sheerin
As befits a festival with a spoken word artist as its guest curator, storytelling is at the heart of the visual arts offer in the 2017 Brighton Festival. It is not known if performance poet Kate Tempest had a hand in commissioning these four shows, but she can probably relate to the four artists in town right now. Among their tales are stories from Turkey, the Australian Outback and, closer to home, the Sussex village of Ditchling.One soon realises that everyone has their own narrative. Turkish artist İpek Duben (pictured below) gives a voice to several compatriots, each of whom materialises Read more ...
Alison Cole
Riveting and bewildering, the 57th Venice Biennale has just opened its myriad doors to the public with several thousand exhibits spread across Venice and its islands. The preview days were thronged with the art world and its coterie of high and low life, with queues stretching outside the two main venues at the Giardini and the Arsenale, and people jostling to enter the national pavilions (86 in all).A line of people waited expectantly to climb a set of steps and poke their head through an opening in the base of the Japanese Pavilion, only to find themselves, embarrassingly, the centrepiece Read more ...
Florence Hallett
Flashes of intense colour pulse rhythmically across the piece, contrasting with delicate washes and pools of watery pigment that seem to quiver plumply, set to run uncontrollably at any moment. Lines drawn fast and bold describe four figures, while more tentative, carefully made marks barely delineate a foot, and a bird in a cage. If Chris Ofili’s new work, unveiled at the National Gallery on Tuesday, offers a glimpse into a dreamlike world of myth and magic, its execution represents nothing short of alchemy, the miraculous transformation of watercolour into tapestry.Commissioned for the Read more ...
Sarah Kent
What a delight to be introduced to an artist whom you have never heard of and whose work is inspirational. Born in Romania in 1926, Geta Brătescu spent much of her life enduring the Soviet occupation of her country, then the repressive regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu; yet her work is a joyous exploration of creative freedom. Behind the closed doors of her studio, she has perfected the art of making something out of nothing. Her materials could not be simpler – paper, charcoal, ink, scissors, string, bits of material and a sewing machine, or lengths of wood and a blanket. With these humble Read more ...
Mark Sheerin
Artist and curator Tyler Mallison has chosen the world’s most generic title for his current exhibition. It's called New Material, and the surprising thing one discovers is that the hackneyed "new" really can be quite fresh. Sculpture and painting comprise display units, work desks, gym equipment, packing tape and whitewash. Several films feature window dressing, cross-dressing and gallery furniture. Meanwhile the whole show is haunted by a Madonna lyric and broadly identifies with the concerns of Generation X.Mallison’s interesting background might lead one to expect a certain utility, or Read more ...
Grayson Perry
I have always felt very lucky to have been working as an artist in London during the period when it transformed into the capital of the art world. It has been a beautiful, fascinating and profitable ride. When I started art school in 1978, contemporary art in Britain seemed like a cottage industry situated in some little backwater seldom visited by the public or the media. Art history happened elsewhere – in Paris, Vienna or New York. Twenty years later, London was cool once again, and its exploding art scene was a large part of that. This was the heyday of the Young British Artists, Charles Read more ...
Sarah Kent
Modern Art Oxford and Spike Island, Bristol have joined forces to create a retrospective of Lubaina Himid’s work that spans some 30 years, includes paintings, drawings, collages, sculptures and assemblages and proves what a highly original and complex artist she is. Himid was a key figure in the Black Arts Movement in the Eighties and Nineties, organising numerous mixed shows that brought attention to the work of black artists. She has been working ever since and exhibiting outside London, but although she has been included in various mixed shows in the capital, it is 25 years since she Read more ...
Florence Hallett
Before we consign this miserable year to history, there are a few good bits to be salvaged; in fact, for the visual arts 2016 has been marked by renewal and regeneration, with a clutch of newish museum directors getting into their stride, and spectacular events like Lumiere London, and London’s Burning bringing light in dark times. 2016 leaves an impressive legacy of museum-building, too: Tate Modern opened its much needed extension in the summer, and the new Harley Gallery at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire provides a fittingly magnificent home for the treasures of the Portland Collection.The Read more ...
Bill Knight
It’s that time of year again. The National Portrait Gallery exhibits the finalists in the annual Taylor Wessing Portrait prize. The judges have seen 4,303 photographs from 1,842 photographers and now show us 57.The imprimatur of the National Portrait Gallery means that this is a really significant show. Entries come from all over the world and the quality of image and reproduction is second to none. As seen through the eyes of the exhibitors, life is a pretty serious business. Here are images of hardship, endurance, duty and emptiness. Not many smiles, unless you count Nigel Farage, hidden Read more ...