Visual Arts Reviews

Mexico: A Revolution in Art 1910-1940, Royal Academy

Sue Hubbard Thursday, 04 July 2013

Artists love a good revolution. The social upheaval, the bubbling up of new ideas and the breaking down of old ones, attracts them like flies to fly paper. The Mexican revolution was no exception. During the years 1910-1940, Mexico attracted large numbers of international intellectuals and artists, seduced by the political maelstrom and apparent freedoms that beckoned in this culturally diverse and varied land.

Vermeer & Music: The Art of Love and Leisure, National Gallery

Marina Vaizey Wednesday, 03 July 2013

Music and art have been intertwined for millennia, the static, frozen and soundless moment of paint capturing the feeling and the meaning of ephemeral time-based music. And nowhere can the act of making music have so thoroughly infiltrated a society at all levels than the Golden Age of Dutch culture in the 17^th century.

Music is emblematic of time passing and its accompaniment, mortality

Paul Delvaux, Blain Di Donna

Toby Saul Tuesday, 02 July 2013

Paul Delvaux, the subject of a modest exhibition at the Blain Di Donna gallery in Mayfair, was JG Ballard’s favourite painter. The writer prized him for the creation of a complete world. Ballard found that world curious and inviting. He said he could spend hours gazing at the pictures wishing he could escape into their alternate reality. Ballard was made of sterner stuff than me. The places Delvaux paints seem quiet but harsh, not much happens but they feel menacing.

Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life, Tate Britain

Fisun Güner Sunday, 30 June 2013

It’s part of the Lowry myth – the myth of many famous artists, in fact, whether or not it actually happens to be true – that he’s never been taken seriously as an artist by critics or by cognoscenti. Even the co-curator of this exhibition, T.J Clark says more or less the same. Lowry isn’t taken seriously, Clark has said, because anyone dealing with working-class life in class-ridden Britain can’t be taken seriously.

Sturtevant: Leaps, Jumps and Bumps, Serpentine Gallery

Sarah Kent Saturday, 29 June 2013

Her name sounds like a brand of cigarettes, and an aura of corporate anonymity seems remarkably apt for this American artist who specialises in replicating other people’s work and sampling clips from online video libraries.

Comment

Curiosity: Art & the Pleasures of Knowing, Turner Contemporary

Laura Gascoigne Tuesday, 25 June 2013

One of this summer’s seaside attractions in Margate is an overstuffed walrus, but day-trippers won’t find it in the town’s Museum of Monstrosities. The taxidermic freak, on loan from the Horniman Museum, is the star exhibit in the new show at Turner Contemporary. Against the backdrop of a North Sea painted by Turner, the adipose Arctic mammal is out of its element.

BP Portrait Award 2013, National Portrait Gallery

Fisun Güner Thursday, 20 June 2013

One is increasingly struck by the oddity of an annual portrait prize, or at least I am. Imagine an annual still life award or an open competition for a major prize for abstract art. And imagine how formulaic and stale that would soon become. How many variations of a photorealist table laden with grapes or half drunk glasses of wine could you put up with? Or just think of all those coolly two-tone geometric canvases that’ll come pouring in.

A Crisis of Brilliance, Dulwich Picture Gallery

Marina Vaizey Tuesday, 18 June 2013

The very tall, skeletal and formidable Henry Tonks (1862-1937), surgeon and anatomist, became one of the most decisive, influential, scathing and inspirational teachers in the history of visual education. At the Slade, in his second career as artist and teacher, he presided over several generations of London-based artists who formed the bedrock of modernism, from the absorption of Impressionism to the various isms of the turn of the last century.

Alternative Guide to the Universe, Hayward Gallery

Sarah Kent Thursday, 13 June 2013

The Alternative Guide to the Universe, an exhibition of work mainly by self-taught practitioners, encourages one to speculate on the merits of orthodox art and science compared with the wild schemes pursued by these eccentrics and visionaries, some of whom are inspirational while others bludgeon you with their offbeat ideas.

Chagall: Modern Master, Tate Liverpool

Fisun Güner Wednesday, 12 June 2013

“Charming” is undoubtedly a double-edged word. Along with its perfumed allure, it carries a whiff of insincerity, of something slick and not quite earned. Add “whimsical” and you know you’re in danger of saccharine overload. Chagall is both, plus he’s one of the most popular artists of the 20^th century. Does it get any worse?