Visual Arts Reviews
Cornelia Parker, Tate Britain review – divine intelligenceMonday, 23 May 2022
Cornelia Parker’s early installations are as fresh and as thought provoking as when they were made. Her Tate Britain retrospective opens with Thirty Pieces of Silver (pictured below left: Detail). Read more... |
Walter Sickert, Tate Britain review - all the world's a stageThursday, 12 May 2022
Who was Walter Sickert and what made him tick? The best way to address the question is to make a beeline for the final room of his Tate Britain retrospective. It’s hung with an impressive array of his last and most colourful paintings. Read more... |
Ming Smith: A Dream Deferred, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery review - snapping the BluesWednesday, 30 March 2022
Ming Smith is a Black female photographer. When she first dropped off her portfolio at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1978 the receptionist assumed she was a courier. When MoMA offered to buy her work she declined at first because the fee didn’t cover her bills. Luckily for us, she relented. Read more... |
Ali Cherri: If you prick us, do we not bleed?, National Gallery review - cabinets of curiosityMonday, 21 March 2022
I’m a sucker for traditional vitrines and the procession of old style display cases installed by Ali Cherri in the Renaissance galleries of the Sainsbury Wing look very handsome. Read more... |
Pionnières: Artistes dans le Paris des années folles, Musée du Luxembourg, Paris review - thrilling and slightly flawedWednesday, 16 March 2022
The hidden history of women artists continues to generate some ground-breaking exhibitions that contribute to a radical re-assessment of art and cultural history. This is a welcome trend, though not entirely without risk, as a new show in Paris demonstrates, and as other exhibitions have managed less convincingly. Read more... |
Surrealism Beyond Borders, Tate Modern review - a disappointing mish mashMonday, 14 March 2022
The night after visiting Tate Modern’s Surrealism Beyond Borders I dreamt that a swarm of wasps had taken refuge inside my skull and I feared it would hurt when they nibbled their way out again. Read more... |
Postwar Modern: New Art in Britain 1945-65, Barbican review - revelations galoreFriday, 04 March 2022
The Barbican’s Postwar Modern covers the period after World War Two when artists were struggling to respond to the horrors that had engulfed Europe and find ways of recovering from the collective trauma. Read more... |
A Century of the Artist's Studio, Whitechapel Gallery review - a voyeur's delightWednesday, 02 March 2022
The Whitechapel Gallery's exhibition opens with Cell IX, 1999 (pictured below) one of the wire cages that Louise Bourgeois filled with memories of her dysfunctional family. This one contains a block of marble carved into hands. A tender portrayal of the mother-daughter bond, it is under scrutiny via three circular mirrors. Read more... |
Louise Bourgeois: The Woven Child, Hayward Gallery review - the wife, the mistress, the daughter and the art that came out of itSaturday, 12 February 2022
Louise Bourgeois didn’t throw anything away and, during the last 20 years of her life, she used her own and her mother’s old clothes to create theatrical tableaux which revisit painful childhood memories. “These garments have a history,” she explained. “They have touched my body and they hold memories of people and places. They are chapters from the story of my life.” Read more... |
America in Crisis, Saatchi Gallery review - a country in jeopardyFriday, 28 January 2022
America in Crisis revisits an exhibition staged in 1969 soon after Richard Nixon was elected President. Pictures taken by 18 Magnum photographers including Elliott Erwitt and Mary Ellen Mark cast a critical eye over American society and capture many of the key events that preceded Nixon’s election. Read more... |
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