fri 04/07/2025

Visual Arts Reviews

Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, V&A review - appearances aren't everything

Katherine Waters

When in 2004 Frida Kahlo’s bedroom  sealed on the command of her husband Diego Rivera for 50 years from her death  was opened, a trove of clothes and personal items was discovered.

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diep~haven 2018 review - a missed connection?

Mark Sheerin

The daily car ferry from Newhaven in Sussex to Dieppe in Normandy is an unlikely phenomenon. Neither port is very large; neither region very populous, and the journey sways you along for four contemplative hours. It enjoys the custom of truckers, school parties, and retired caravan-owners. But it also caters for art lovers with time on their hands.

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The London Mastaba, Serpentine Galleries review - good news for ducks?

Katherine Waters

It’s not as immersive as New York’s The Gates, 2005, nor as magnificent as Floating Piers, 2016, in Italy’s Lake Iseo  it has also, according to Hyde Park regular Kay, “scared away the ducks,”  but superstar artist Christo’s The London Mastaba looks quite absurdly unreal and is totally free for the public.

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Hidden Door Festival, Edinburgh - transforming spaces

Miranda Heggie

In just five years, what the team behind Hidden Door Festival has achieved is quite remarkable.

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Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One, Tate Britain review - all in the mind

Katherine Waters

Not far into Aftermath, Tate Britain’s new exhibition looking at how the experience of World War One shaped artists working in its wake, hangs a group of photographs by Pierre Anthony-Thouret depicting the damage inflicted on Reims.

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David Shrigley talk, Brighton Festival review - comedic stroll through a career in art

Thomas H Green

As the Brighton Festival 2018 draws towards its closing weekend, its Guest Director, the artist David Shrigley, has committed to an illustrated talk about his work that “will contain numerous rambling anecdotes but not be in the slightest bit boring”. In the programme, he claims to have promised this signed in his own blood. Such drastic assurance proves unnecessary.

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Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art: Made in the USA, BBC Four review - unexpected facts aplenty

Marina Vaizey

“Oh say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light” was a vision of the American flag, that star-spangled banner, riding proud from Francis Scott Key’s patriotic poem of 1814 based on an episode in the War of 1812.

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Highlights from Photo London 2018 - something old, something new

Bill Knight

Photo London seems much better this year, mainly because I am at last able to find my way around the labyrinthine Somerset House without getting lost in photography. Things got off to a good start when I bumped into Annie Leibovitz in reception. Actually "bumped into" isn’t quite the right expression – she and her entourage went through like an express train.

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The New Royal Academy and Tacita Dean, Landscape review - a brave beginning to a new era

Sarah Kent

This weekend the Royal Academy (R.A) celebrates its 250th anniversary with the opening of 6 Burlington Gardens (main picture), duly refurbished for the occasion. When it was dirty the Palladian facade felt coldly overbearing, but cleaning it has highlighted the bands of sandstone and brown marble columns that lend warmth to the Portland stone.

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David Shrigley/Brett Goodroad, Brighton Festival review - showcases puncturing the medium's pretence

Mark Sheerin

In his 1991 novel Mao II, Don DeLillo called the literary medium “a democratic shout”. His oft-quoted claim is that any man or woman on the street could strike it lucky, find their voice, and write a great book. Not only does everyone carry round a novel, but those novels are potentially brilliant.

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