Visual Arts Reviews
Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition, Design Museum review - immersive detailFriday, 03 May 2019
Who would have known that the word “Kubrickian” only entered the Oxford English Dictionary last year? You’d have thought that one of the great film directors of the 20th century would have earned his own epithet long ago. Read more... |
Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light, National Gallery review - a national treasure comes to LondonFriday, 26 April 2019
The National Gallery is on a roll to expand ever further our understanding of western art, alternating blockbusters dedicated to familiar and bankable stars, with selections of work by lesser known figures from across the centuries. Read more... |
Who’s Afraid of Drawing? Works on Paper from the Ramo Collection, Estorick Collection review - surprising and rewardingThursday, 25 April 2019
Paper is traditionally the medium though which artists think. Stray thoughts and experiments can be quickly tried out, pushed further or jettisoned. There are no penalties for starting something which goes wrong or transforms into something else because material is cheap, expendable. Erasure or high finish are equally likely, dead ends and new directions begin in the same place. Read more... |
Sea Star: Sean Scully, National Gallery review - analysing past mastersTuesday, 23 April 2019
Either side of a doorway, framing a view of Turner’s The Evening Star, c. 1830 (Main picture), Sean Scully’s Landline Star, 2017, and Landline Pool, 2018, frankly acknowledge their roots.
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Visions of the Self: Rembrandt and Now, Gagosian Gallery review - old master, new waysTuesday, 16 April 2019
What are we to make of the two circles dustily inscribed in the background of Rembrandt’s c.1665 self-portrait? In a painting that bears the fruits of a life’s experience, drawn freehand, they might be a display of artistic virtuosity, or – more convincing were they unbroken – symbolise eternity. Read more... |
Edvard Munch: Love and Angst, British Museum review - compassion in the age of anxietyThursday, 11 April 2019
Munch’s The Scream is as piercing as it has ever been, and its silence does nothing to lessen its viscerally devastating effect. It was painted in 1893, but it was a lithograph produced two years later – now the star of the biggest UK exhibition of Munch’s prints for a generation – that would make it famous. Read more... |
Mary Quant, Victoria & Albert Museum review - quantities of QuantSaturday, 06 April 2019
Mary Quant first made her name in 1955 with the wildly fashionable King’s Road boutique Bazaar. Initially selling a “bouillabaisse” of stock it was not until a pair of pyjamas she made was bought by an American who said he’d copy and mass produce them that Quant began dedicating herself to her own designs. Read more... |
Pitzhanger Manor review - letting the light back inTuesday, 02 April 2019
When in 1800 the architect Sir John Soane bought Pitzhanger Manor for £4,500, he did so under the spell of optimism, energy and hope. Read more... |
At Eternity's Gate review - Willem Dafoe excels in hyperactive biopicSaturday, 30 March 2019
It's all go – no, make that Van Gogh – when it comes to the Dutch post-Impressionist of late. Read more... |
Van Gogh and Britain, Tate Britain review - tenuous but still persuasiveWednesday, 27 March 2019
Soon after his death, Van Gogh’s reputation as a tragic genius was secured. Little has changed in the meantime, and he has continued to be understood as fatally unbalanced, ruled by instinct not intellect. Read more... |
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