Visual Arts Features
Photography 2009: Favourite BooksWednesday, 23 December 2009
|
theartsdesk in the Emirates: A Cultural Arms RaceSunday, 29 November 2009
Rising spectacularly from the warm turquoise waters of Doha Bay, the building which is probably I.M. Pei’s final and perhaps his greatest work, the iconic Museum of Islamic Art, symbolises the cultural arms race among the Islamic Emirates strung out along the Gulf, on the flank of Big... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Rome: Building the Future, SlowlySunday, 22 November 2009
The rapturous reception for Zaha Hadid’s groundbreaking, breathtaking new confection in Rome, Il Museo dell’Arte del XXIesimo Secolo - the 21st-Century Art Museum (MAXXI for short) - has reopened for the umpteenth time one of Italy’s favourite cultural debates. Why the hell does it take so long to build anything decent in our capital city, especially when we have one of the finest traditions - if not the finest - in architecture, civil engineering and construction, of anywhere in... Read more... |
Tim Davies, Glynn Vivian Gallery, SwanseaSunday, 08 November 2009
Wales doesn’t figure high on the UK charts of art awareness, but one of its leading contemporary artists, 43-year-old Tim Davies, represents a generation who are producing significant, original work without approbation from the Hoxton or Shoreditch taste-makers, and often, attention comes from abroad. In Wales, of course, it’s a different story: he was Gold Medal winner in the 2003 National Eisteddfod, and on the other hand the only British artist shortlisted for the prestigious international... Read more... |
A Gold Medal for the Cultural Olympiad?Monday, 26 October 2009
Worries that London 2012’s Cultural Olympiad had fallen at the first hurdle – as it seemed when the proposed Olympic Friend-ship, carrying a cargo of British artists and philosophers around the world, was scrapped – can be assuaged. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Paris: Surrealist BluesSunday, 25 October 2009
I've been having rather a surreal autumn here in Paris. First, I was lucky enough to catch the last day of Une semaine de bonté at the Musée d'Orsay, where the original collages were on display in five colour-coded chambers. For those not in the know, Max Ernst's... Read more... |
The Museum of Everything, Primrose HillThursday, 08 October 2009
The art world has never been unself-aware – its navel is deeper and more gazed-at than almost any other art form. So what happens when you bring artists unaware of the art world into the contemplated and contemplating fold? The Museum of Everything, a new space in Primrose Hill, north-west London, which opened this week, is devoted to Outsider Art and by extension to answering this question. Read more... |
Titian in LoveSunday, 27 September 2009In 1522, Jacopo Tebaldi, agent of Titian’s great patron Alfonso d’Este, paid a visit to the artist who had claimed to be too ill to work. "I have been to see Titian," he wrote to Alfonso, "who has no fever at all. He looks well, if somewhat exhausted, and I suspect that the girls whom he paints in different poses arouse his desires, which he then satisfies more than his limited strength permits. Though he denies it." Read more... |
Titian's Bacchus and AriadneSunday, 20 September 2009
In 1519 Titian was commissioned by Alfonso d’Este, the famously irascible Duke of Ferrara, to provide the first of three paintings for a study, the so-called camerino d’alabastro or alabaster room. If the following five years of delays and procrastination drove the duke almost to distraction, they produced what is arguably the most famous room in the history of Western art. |
Ryan McGinley, Alison Jacques GalleryThursday, 10 September 2009Surrounded by a heaving, drinking, swooning, sweating blanket of admirers and professional artworld partygoers, Ryan McGinley has come a long way from the caves he shot for his latest show, Moonmilk, which opened at Alison Jacques Gallery last night. He finds it hard to move without being papped or kissed or having a catalogue thrust into... Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 10,000 pieces, we're asking for £3.95 per month or £30 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take an annual subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
theartsdesk at Glastonbury Festival 2018
Daft Punk! Kendrick Lamar! The Kinks! Yes! We blew the lid off!
What? No! There IS no...
The Town Hall Affair, The Wooster Group, Barbican review - e...
Iconoclasm, orgasms, and rampant rhetoric are all on irrepressible display in...
The Path to Heaven, RNCM, Manchester review - tragedy, truth...
Adam Gorb’s The Path to Heaven, with libretto by Ben Kaye, is his longest work to date (almost two hours’ running time without interval)...
Finishing the Picture, Finborough Theatre review - projectio...
In the early 20th century, Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov spliced together images of people looking at things with a bowl of soup, a woman on a...
Kiss Me, Kate, Opera North, London Coliseum review - Cole Po...
First palpable hit of the evening: a full orchestra in the pit under hyper-alert...
theartsdesk on Vinyl 40: Talking Heads, Ornette Coleman, Cra...
Earlier this year, in May, Brighton hosted the Vinyl World Congress where Paul Pacifico, head of the Association of Independent Music, told the...
In The Fade review - twisty German courtroom drama
The Cannes jury in 2017 gave best actress to Diane Kruger for her performance in In the Fade. She plays Katja, who turns avenging angel...
David Byrne, Eventim Apollo review - twice in a lifetime?
Forgive the sports metaphor, but David Byrne knocked this one out of the park. Coming out of the concert at the...
The London Mastaba, Serpentine Galleries review - good news...
It’s not as immersive as New York’s The Gates, 2005, nor as magnificent as Floating Piers, 2016, in Italy’s Lake Iseo...