Visual Arts Reviews

The Banker's Guide to the Art Market, BBC Four

Florence Hallett Friday, 15 July 2016

This programme was not ironic, humorous or in any way lighthearted. I’m fairly sure of that, but worry that perhaps I’ve missed the joke. A withering take-down or a meaty exposé of the corruption and excess of the extremely wealthy would have served a purpose, but this was neither.

Les Rencontres d'Arles 2016

Bill Knight Friday, 08 July 2016

Nous avons Brexité but we are still welcome at the 47th Rencontres d'Arles. Each summer this beautiful French town gives itself over to an international photography festival which this year features around 40 exhibitions of varying sizes with countless lectures, parties, book signings and fringe events.

Georgia O’Keeffe, Tate Modern

Sarah Kent Tuesday, 05 July 2016

It's 100 years since Georgia O’Keeffe first showed at Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery in New York, a hub of avant-garde activity, and the opening room of this major retrospective revisits the 1916 exhibition. Inspired by Arthur Dow’s emphasis on freedom of expression and Wassily Kandinsky’s book The Art of Spiritual Harmony, O’Keeffe made a series of drawings and paintings in which natural forms are abstracted to the point where they are only just recognisable.

Art Night London

Florence Hallett Monday, 04 July 2016

Just a few hours earlier, as helicopters clattered overhead and thousands joined the good-humoured but impassioned March for Europe, an evening of contemporary art felt like the last thing anyone needed. On this day of all days, launching an art festival inspired by the success of Nuit Blanche in Paris felt like an unnecessary application of salt to the wound.

David Hockney RA: 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life, Royal Academy

Alison Cole Friday, 01 July 2016

The opening image of this new David Hockney exhibition – a sketchily painted portrait of a seated man, slumping heavily forward, his head buried in his hands – could be a portrait of Brexit despair.

Painters' Paintings, National Gallery

Marina Vaizey Sunday, 26 June 2016

The huge and gorgeous Titian, The Vendramin Family, c.1540-c.1560, displays a frieze of males of all ages, three or four generations – and an adorable lap dog held close by the youngest boy – in marvellously sumptuous costume. The painting is surrounded with portraits by an ardent admirer of Titian's, Anthony van Dyck, our interest in the Titian deepened by the fact that Van Dyck once owned it.

The Switch House, Tate Modern

Marina Vaizey Friday, 17 June 2016

Here comes the Switch House. The 10-story new build attached to the Gilbert Scott Bankside power station that was the first instalment of Tate Modern in 2000 opened to the public this weekend. Tate Modern’s expansion became almost a necessity as the original estimate of two million annual visitors became five million.

Whitstable Biennale 2016

Mark Sheerin Thursday, 09 June 2016

As if to signal a coming of age, this year's Whitstable Biennale has a theme: The Faraway Nearby. And so for the first time artists have a guiding idea with which to post-rationalise their work. Until now, the 10-day festival of visual art has staked out broad territory with performance, film and emerging talent.

Yayoi Kusama, Victoria Miro

Marina Vaizey Tuesday, 07 June 2016

Pure euphoria! The lady, a mere 87, her stature diminutive, her hair and lipstick a blazing scarlet, is a painter, but also a draughtsman, a sculptor, a creator of environments and installations, a performer, a designer of objects and clothing (affordable too at UniQlo) an illustrator, a writer, a poet, and an all-round polymath. Kusama has lived by choice for nearly 40 years in a psychiatric hospital in her native Japan, working indefatigably.

Found, The Foundling Museum

Sarah Kent Friday, 03 June 2016

Cornelia Parker invited over 60 fellow artists to join her in exhibiting at the Foundling Museum in London. Titled Found, the show spills out from the basement gallery to infiltrate every room in the building and remind us that, when the Foundling Hospital was set up as a charity for destitute children in 1739, artists made an important contribution.