Visual Arts Reviews
Vanessa Bell, MK Gallery review - diving into and out of abstractionTuesday, 22 October 2024
The Bloomsbury group’s habit of non-binary bed-hopping has frequently attracted more attention than the artworks they produced. But in their Vanessa Bell retrospective, the MK Gallery has steered blissfully clear of salacious tittle tattle. Thankfully, this allows one to focus on Bell’s paintings and designs rather than her complicated domestic life. Read more... |
Lygia Clark: The I and the You, Sonia Boyce: An Awkward Relation, Whitechapel Gallery review - breaking boundariesThursday, 10 October 2024
Brazilian artist Lygia Clark is best known for taking her abstract sculptures off the pedestal and inviting people to interact with them. Dozens of constructions named Bichos (Beasts or Critters) (pictured below right) are hinged along the joins to allow you to rearrange the parts in seemingly endless configurations. Read more... |
Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit, Tate Modern review - adolescent angst indefinitely extendedWednesday, 09 October 2024
Like an angry teenager rejecting everything his parents stand for, American artist Mike Kelley embraced everything most despised by the art world – from popular culture to crafts, and occultism to catholicism – to create what he ironically called “blue collar minimalism”. “An adolescent,” he declared, “is a dysfunctional adult and art is a dysfunctional reality”. Read more... |
Monet and London, Courtauld Gallery review - utterly sublime smogFriday, 04 October 2024
In September 1899, Claude Monet booked into a room at the Savoy Hotel. From there he had a good view of Waterloo Bridge and the south bank beyond. Setting up his easel on a balcony, he began a series of paintings of the river and the buildings on its banks. Read more... |
Michael Craig-Martin, Royal Academy review - from clever conceptual art to digital decorWednesday, 25 September 2024
Michael Craig-Martin was the most playful and provocative of the conceptual artists. His early sculptures are like visual puns, a play on the laws of nature. On the Table, 1970 (pictured below right), for instance, appears to defy gravity. Four buckets filled with water stand on a table; so far so ordinary. But the table has no legs and is suspended from the ceiling by ropes and pulleys. Read more... |
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers, National Gallery review - passions translated into paintSaturday, 14 September 2024
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers includes many of his best known pictures and, amazingly, it is the first exhibition the National Gallery has devoted to this much loved artist. Focusing mainly on paintings and drawings made in the two years he lived in Provence (1888-1890), it charts the emotional highs and lows of his stay in the Yellow House in Arles, and the times he spent in Read more... |
Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent, Whitechapel Gallery review - photomontages sizzling with rageTuesday, 30 July 2024
Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent at the Whitechapel Gallery includes many of the artists’s most iconic political photomontages. Read more... |
Dominique White: Deadweight, Whitechapel Gallery review - sculptures that seem freighted with historyMonday, 29 July 2024
It’s been a long time since the Whitechapel Gallery has presented three seriously good exhibitions at the same time. Already reviewed are Gavin Jantjes’ paintings on show in the main gallery. He is now joined, in gallery 2, by Dominique White, winner of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women and in galleries 5, 6 & 7, by Peter Kennard. Read more... |
In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine 1900-1930s, Royal Academy review - famous avant-garde Russian artists who weren't Russian after allWednesday, 03 July 2024
Ukraine’s history is complex and often bitter. The territory has been endlessly fought over, divided, annexed and occupied. From 1917-20 it enjoyed a brief period of independence before being swallowed up once more by the Soviet Union after a vicious three year war – an example that Vladimir Putin is copying with his monstrous invasion. Read more... |
Francis Alÿs: Ricochets, Barbican review - fun for the kids, yet I was moved to tearsFriday, 28 June 2024
Belgian artist, Francis Alÿs has filled the Barbican Art Gallery with films of children playing games the world over. Read more... |
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