Visual Arts Reviews
Highlights from Photo London 2017 - virtual reality meets vintage treasureSaturday, 20 May 2017
At heart, Photo London is a selling fair for expensive photographic prints. You wander through the steamy labyrinth of Somerset House from gallery show to gallery show surrounded by black-clad snapperati, assaulted on all sides by images until lost in photography. Read more...
|
Visual art at Brighton Festival - disturbing, playful, but ultimately rudderlessThursday, 18 May 2017
As befits a festival with a spoken word artist as its guest curator, storytelling is at the heart of the visual arts offer in the 2017 Brighton Festival. It is not known if performance poet Kate Tempest had a hand in commissioning these four shows, but she can probably relate to the four artists in town right now. Read more... |
57th Venice Biennale review - riveting and bewilderingWednesday, 17 May 2017
Riveting and bewildering, the 57th Venice Biennale has just opened its myriad doors to the public with several thousand exhibits spread across Venice and its islands. Read more... |
Alberto Giacometti, Tate ModernSaturday, 13 May 2017
Chain-smoking and charismatic, the painter, sculptor, draughtsman and printmaker Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) lived much of his life in Paris from his arrival there in his twenties. He was just in time for post-war cubism and pre-war surrealism, the energetic noisiness of the avant garde. Read more... |
Picasso: Minotaurs and Matadors, GagosianThursday, 11 May 2017
At 93, Picasso’s revered biographer, Sir John Richardson, has curated a vital new celebration of the artist’s life and work, focusing on one of his most enduring and delightful subjects, the Minotaur. Read more... |
Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains, V&A review – from innocence to experience and beyondWednesday, 10 May 2017
The title of this exhibition is typical of Pink Floyd’s mordant view of the world, not to mention their sepulchral sense of humour. Read more... |
Richard Long: Earth Sky, Houghton HallSunday, 30 April 2017
“I’m a great opportunist,” says Richard Long, a statement that for all its economy brims with contradictions and possibilities. While his sculptures made in wild and far-flung places often look stumbled-upon, incidental, his method is so careful and considered, each gesture so meticulously planned, that opportunism seems hardly the word for it. Read more... |
Chris Ofili, National GalleryWednesday, 26 April 2017
Flashes of intense colour pulse rhythmically across the piece, contrasting with delicate washes and pools of watery pigment that seem to quiver plumply, set to run uncontrollably at any moment. Lines drawn fast and bold describe four figures, while more tentative, carefully made marks barely delineate a foot, and a bird in a cage. Read more... |
Queer British Art 1861-1967, Tate BritainThursday, 20 April 2017
"Good for the history of music, but not for music," one of Prokofiev's professors at the St Petersburg Conservatoire used to say of artistically dubious works which created a splash, according to the composer's diaries. Read more... |
Geta Bratescu, Camden Arts CentreThursday, 13 April 2017
What a delight to be introduced to an artist whom you have never heard of and whose work is inspirational. Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 10,000 pieces, we're asking for £3.95 per month or £30 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take an annual subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
theartsdesk at Glastonbury Festival 2018
Daft Punk! Kendrick Lamar! The Kinks! Yes! We blew the lid off!
What? No! There IS no...
The Town Hall Affair, The Wooster Group, Barbican review - e...
Iconoclasm, orgasms, and rampant rhetoric are all on irrepressible display in...
The Path to Heaven, RNCM, Manchester review - tragedy, truth...
Adam Gorb’s The Path to Heaven, with libretto by Ben Kaye, is his longest work to date (almost two hours’ running time without interval)...
Finishing the Picture, Finborough Theatre review - projectio...
In the early 20th century, Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov spliced together images of people looking at things with a bowl of soup, a woman on a...
Kiss Me, Kate, Opera North, London Coliseum review - Cole Po...
First palpable hit of the evening: a full orchestra in the pit under hyper-alert...
theartsdesk on Vinyl 40: Talking Heads, Ornette Coleman, Cra...
Earlier this year, in May, Brighton hosted the Vinyl World Congress where Paul Pacifico, head of the Association of Independent Music, told the...
In The Fade review - twisty German courtroom drama
The Cannes jury in 2017 gave best actress to Diane Kruger for her performance in In the Fade. She plays Katja, who turns avenging angel...
David Byrne, Eventim Apollo review - twice in a lifetime?
Forgive the sports metaphor, but David Byrne knocked this one out of the park. Coming out of the concert at the...
The London Mastaba, Serpentine Galleries review - good news...
It’s not as immersive as New York’s The Gates, 2005, nor as magnificent as Floating Piers, 2016, in Italy’s Lake Iseo...