Visual arts
Katherine Waters
In 1922 Hussein Abdel-Rassoul, a water boy with Howard Carter’s archaeological dig in the Valley of the Kings, accidentally uncovered a step in the sand. It proved to be the breakthrough for which Carter, on the hunt for the final resting place of King Tutankhamun, was looking. The tomb they uncovered showed signs of having been robbed in ancient times but inside thousands of items remained, selected for a journey to the afterlife, which had lain undisturbed for millennia. The survival of some was almost inconceivable: wooden boxes, linen gloves, unguents and cases packed with food. Others Read more ...
Katherine Waters
Artist George Stubbs liked horses. The MK Gallery’s exhibition “all done from Nature” will try to convince you that he also cared about people. He did, to an extent; the commissions came that way. But about half way through the exhibition, the diminutive Study for Three Hunters and Two Grooms Waiting in a Stable-Yard, 1765-70, gives pause for thought. The detailed study depicts a horse with pensive eyes and toned flanks. One back hoof is elegantly raised, as if ready for parade. Its ears are perkily alert. It is a clever creature. Yet where bridle and saddle should be is empty space. Its Read more ...
Sarah Kent
Lucian Freud died in 2011 after a career spanning some 70 odd years. Over the decades, he painted and drew himself repeatedly, creating a fascinating portrait of a man who spent an inordinate amount of time scrutinising himself and others.One of the first images in the Royal Academy’s splendid exhibition is an ink drawing made in 1949 for a book on Greek myths. Freud casts himself as Actaeon who, according to the myth, accidentally came across Diana, goddess of the hunt, bathing naked. In punishment for the transgression, she turned him into a stag to be hunted down and torn apart by her Read more ...
Florence Hallett
“People collect diamonds because they sparkle; or they sit on a bench in Cornwall and look out to sea”. At the Hayward Gallery for the opening of her retrospective, Bridget Riley speaks of such uncomplicated pleasures with evident delight. To experience Riley’s works is to be exposed afresh to the thrill of seeing, the sensations induced by her optically challenging fields of lines, curves, spots and waves an unapologetic, bodily reminder that perception is a mechanism over which we have no control, a process that is mysterious and powerful, and fundamental to being alive.They may look like Read more ...
Katherine Waters
Of the British, the English have a reputation for satire. They’re also prone to stupidity. The combination of biting morality and excoriating wit required to deride this tendency reached notable heights in the work of engraver and painter William Hogarth (1697-1764). It is with bracing timing that curators at Sir John Soane’s Museum have brought together ten pieces of his work in an engrossing exhibition taking place across five rooms in the house of one of his most notable admirers.Soane’s (1753-1857) long-standing interest in Hogarth’s work did much to revive the artist’s reputation. His Read more ...
Sarah Kent
Focusing on twelve women who played a key role in the lives of Pre-Raphaelite painters like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt, this timely exhibition begins with a whimper and ends with a bang. First up at the National Portrait Gallery is Effie Gray whose marriage to art critic, John Ruskin was annulled after six years for non-consummation. The story goes that, having only seen classical Greek sculptures, he was horrified by her pubic hair!Gray then married Millais and assumed the traditional role of supportive wife. This involved keeping house, bearing and Read more ...
Florence Hallett
Among the numerous exhibitions marking the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt’s death, this small show at the Dulwich Picture Gallery stands out. A select but high quality group of paintings and works on paper provides the focus for this study of Rembrandt’s use of light, which he deployed not only in virtuoso displays of imitative naturalism but, just like a film-maker, as a tool to establish mood, narrative sequence, and hierarchy.Perhaps if Rembrandt were alive today he might have chosen film over paint. It’s not such a radical proposal, and follows on from Peter Greenaway’s 2010 film which Read more ...
Sarah Kent
Now in her mid-seventies, Anna Maria Maiolino has been making work for six decades. Its a long stretch to cover in an exhibition, especially when the artist is not well known. Perhaps inevitably, then, this Whitechapel Gallery retrospective seems somewhat sketchy and opaque, a feeling compounded by having titles in Portuguese. The work is so interesting and so diverse, though, that engaging with it is well worth the effort.Puzzling over this odd feeling of disconnect, it occurred to me that it is central to Maiolino’s practice. Born in Italy, she moved to Venezuela at the age of 12, to Brazil Read more ...
Florence Hallett
“Gauguin was undoubtedly self-obsessed” begins the National Gallery’s latest dead cert blockbuster, as it cheerfully hijacks a de facto series begun next door at the National Portrait Gallery. Unlike Picasso and Cézanne, Gauguin is not known for his portraiture – all those young Polynesian girls are empty vessels, awaiting the thoughts and fantasies of the artist, the viewer, men, anyone but themselves.Still, only two female nudes are included in this exhibition, though the absence of clothes can hardly have been grounds for exclusion. Instead we have less familiar, but no less sensual works Read more ...
Sarah Kent
The Barbican’s latest offering – a look at the clubs and cabarets set up by artists mainly in the early years of the 20th century – is a brilliant theme for an exhibition. Established as alternatives to galleries and museums, places like the Chat Noir in Paris, Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich and Bal Tic Tac in Rome were hotbeds of creative exploration where members exhibited work, explored ideas and experimented with radical new art forms. If artist’s studios are spaces primarily for solo achievement, where great artworks are produced and reputations made, these clubs were social spaces Read more ...
Sarah Kent
Soaring some 40 feet up towards the ceiling of Tate Modern’s vast Turbine Hall, Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus looks ludicrously out of place – like a Victorian interloper within this cathedral to contemporary art. Resembling those monuments you walk past without giving a second’s thought to what they represent, this intruder isn’t just in the wrong place, it is broadcasting the wrong messages.If history is told by the victors and the function of public sculpture is to enshrine their version of events, the American artist turns the tradition on its head to expose some of the dirty dealings Read more ...
Katherine Waters
Poor Satan. Adam and Eve are loved-up, snogging on a flowery hillock and all he’s got for company is a snake — an extension of himself no less, and where’s the fun in monologues? Poor, poor Satan. He’s a hunk too, if you don’t mind blue. Coiffed hair and toned arms with a sexy sky slouch. Ever seen such a lovely lounger? Ever seen such a mournful moue? He’s angel worthy of our pity, even if he is fallen. But maybe Adam and Eve’s bliss isn’t all its cracked up to be. Isn’t Adam’s posture a touch douchy? Doesn’t Eve look a bit uncomfortable stretching up to meet his lips? Why are their eyes Read more ...