We've all visited the leading art spaces in Paris, London and New York for our fix of contemporary art; yet not many have travelled as far as Moscow. But now, with the forward-thinking Garage, our attention is turning to see what the Russian capital has to offer. With five exhibitions, a renowned magazine, cutting-edge book shop, and open-air cinema, Garage has evolved into a creative hub like no other.
Writing in a present day 30° degrees London, lulled by the tropical chirping of now-local green parakeets, surrounded by issues of the National Geographic heralding the melting of the Antarctica ice caps, it is not hard to understand how the imagery evoked by Ballard captured the imagination of the Goss Brothers who recently launched a fashion line for Folk Clothing inspired by this prescient book.
Long before #instafood, #foodporn or #foodart became Instagrammable sensations, American artist Wayne Thiebaud had made a profitable and lengthy career out of it. Melting ice-creams in wafer cones, perfectly poised cherries on cinnamon buns and swirling dollops of sugar icing were the rising stars of his early compositions. You could say that Thiebaud paved the way for a modern obsession with beautiful food.
Where is Further Away? How far can our imagination carry us? To Cuba, to a place of little sense, to the boundary between life and death? The ten artists featured in this exhibition at Copeland Gallery do precisely that: they transport the viewer somewhere they have not ventured yet. Curated by India Dickinson, the journey begins with Ivo Morrison’s indigo fantasies, where oneiric worlds are shrouded in mystery and nostalgia.
Founded in early 2015 by Patrick Barstow, PM/AM is a gallery space, which aims to challenge the existing models that we use to interact with art. By introducing 3D glasses and ocular manipulation, Ry Bradley’s exhibition: 21th Century does just that. Juxtaposing the white and grey setting are Bradley’s kaleidoscopic pieces. French impressionism immediately springs to mind, as the paintings are reminiscent of Monet’s Water Lilies.
Stepping into the polished concrete, white walled interior of the Chelsea’s Cassina Projects, one wouldn’t expect these to be the words echoing in their mind upon entering the gallery space. And yet, Junichiro Tanizaki’s musings on Japanese aesthetics feel particularly apt to describe the works featured in this exhibition curated by ARTUNER, which borrows its title from the writer’s most famous essay, ‘In Praise of Shadows’.
Frieze New York is an annual event, which attracts a broad spectrum of collectors, artists and gallerists to make the pilgrimage over the East River and discover an impressive selection of both modern and contemporary art. Across just four days, their hugely diverse audience are exposed to a plethora of cutting-edge works exhibited by more than 200 international galleries as well as a developed program of art talks, lectures and curator-led tours.
Young curator Antonia Marsh’s group show A _______ is A ______ currently on show at Golborne Gallery presents a seductive dystopian vision of everyday life. Although on the surface the small gallery may appear to be a complacent collection of works revelling in the mundane, there is a distinct punk spirit to be felt and a tangible yearning for something better than that which is.
With white-washed walls, large colour-splashed figurative canvases, beautifully-bound catalogues and a seriously cool London address, Timothy Taylor is a contemporary art collector’s dream space. Currently exhibiting Eddie Martinez’s second solo show, Cowboy Town, Timothy Taylor has, yet again, shot the lights out.The paintings are raw, bold and predominantly figurative.
It’s a big year for Marylebone-based Lisson Gallery, as it celebrates its fiftieth year in the art world with its sixteenth exhibition of Anish Kapoor’s work. This new show represents a development in Kapoor’s oeuvre - one that is made possible by drawing on many recognisable elements of his work.
White Rainbow gallery has united five artists’ explorations of the notion of weightlessness, displaying how artists reconfigure material to distort their physical properties, or so the press release claims. The room is mostly filled with sculptural forms, except for a few wall-mounted works by artist duo Ittah Yoda that hang quietly triumphant behind their neighbours who, despite all their efforts, only seem to prove the rule that weight is an aspect that simply cannot be altered.
“The cliche of the journey being the destination is partly true in this case,” opened Neville Wakefield at the inauguration of the Desert X biennial in Palm Springs. Lasting until April 30, Desert X brings together 14 artists investigating the broad cultural, social, and ecological impacts of the desert. Set across 40 square miles of the Coachella Valley, the works take viewers to nature preserves, A-frame motels, and underground survival shelters.
Across the board, there seems to be a pull towards painting as a medium both in artistic practice and art institutions. Abstract contemporary painting in particular is at the fore, promising material realness and meaning in today’s digital vacuity. London is currently scattered with painting exhibitions and Lamb Arts, a gallery which applies itself between London and Sao Paulo, appears to have followed within this trend.
The female body is a delicate, reactive and complex entity, there is no one way to approach or describe it. Touch Sensitive saw curator Cairo Clarke invite six women artists to explore the representation of the feminine exterior through a week of six individual exhibitions of performance art. Focusing on the sense of touch, Clarke created a discourse on the digitisation, politicisation and sexualisation of the body.
Christopher Page’s site-specific art work Exterior. (Morning.) currently occupies the East London exhibition space UNIT9 Gallery. Founded by Alex Flick, an artist in his own right, the space aims to provide an exhibition platform for emerging artists who demonstrate a sense of ambition, promise and talent. Focusing on the mediums of installation, video, performance as well as conceptual works with a distinctive voice
The 78th Whitney Biennial is a potluck of strangers. Their connections are about place rather than relationships. They all know the hosts, but not each other. The Whitney Museum’s wall texts and publicity - the potluck’s menu - suggest that this year’s “artists test the limits of time worn structures and protocols, claim space for direct experience and personal agency, and create alternate zones or worlds. Some spotlight particular social issues, such as financial debt, violence, or access to equal opportunities
Over the years, Art Rotterdam has gained a reputation among European contemporary art fairs for being one of the major art events for galleries, dealers, artists and collectors. Earlier this year, the 18th edition gathered more than 100 galleries in 4 curated sections including the Prospect and Concept sections, all hosted under the roof of the Van Nelle Factory. Inevitably, Art Rotterdam is also an opportunity for the city as a whole to become a temporary cluster for the arts.
David Hockney: 60 years of work at London’s Tate Britain is a beautifully-curated retrospective of the artist’s multi-faceted, multi-dimensional oeuvre. Populated with some of Hockney’s most iconic paintings from across the decades, this chronological overview pinpoints the defining moments in his prolific career. His use of colour, his play with artifice and his experimental use of mediums are explored in great depth by the exhibition's team of curators Chris Stephens, Andrew Wilson and Helen Little.
Russia, newly fearsome and obscure, is very much in the news, but not for reasons that invite open cultural exchange. America’s Cold War adversary for four frosty decades, Russia—then called the Soviet Union—underwent a brief glasnost, or period of transparency during the late 1980s and early 1990s. What followed afterwards was its polar opposite. To borrow a phrase from William Styron, today the largest country on earth exemplifies the idea of darkness visible.
Imagine if the cure for homesickness could be carried in a suitcase - that you were able to pop up a particular window pane or door knob from your childhood home or college art studio, wherever you go. For Do Ho Suh, this is near enough the objective. Set across three individual spaces, Passage/s at Victoria Miro, is the artist’s first solo exhibition in London.
The Kings are Back at Chelsea space The Dot Project is a bold and evocative showcase of contemporary European painting from a Hungary-based collective that appears to defy convention. David Krňanský, Martin Lukáč and Julius Reichel - collectively known as Black Hole Generation - met whilst studying together at the Academy of Architecture and Design (UMPRUM) in Prague.
The futuristic box of a building placed in a heart of the Gorky park in Moscow, Gaeage was reopened in its third building last summer. The renovated building of the Soviet-era ‘Vremena goda’ restaurant was partly preserved on the inside, while on the outside Rem Koolhaas has put into the the polycarbonate making a step away from the typical white cube of a contemporary museum.
Celebrated for his boundless energy, the 88-year old Argentinian artist Julio Le Parc is currently exhibiting at both Galerie Perrotin, New York and the Perez Art Museum, Miami. Internationally-known for his perceptually illusory paintings, sculptures, and immersive installations, the artist’s innovative artwork continues to capture the imagination of a cutting-edge, contemporary audience.
Traditional art media do not ask much of one’s time. Two- and three-dimensional works occupy space: on a wall, on a floor, or even suspended from a ceiling. To borrow from Robert Mangold, these works say, “Here I am. Plonk.” You see it. You might walk around it. You either get it or not. Job done. Video—time-based media—demands more of the viewer, especially when the work is flat screen and full frontal as opposed to immersive or interactive.
Established in 2001, the ‘Ultra Technologists’, TeamLab, are a Japanese tech-art collective working within the digital realm seeking to ‘transcend physical and conceptual boundaries.’ The interdisciplinary group includes professional animators, graphic designers and artists as well as mathematicians. It was established by Toshiyuki Inoko. By using the digital domain as a key element of their practice, TeamLab produce works of art that connect and flow from one to the other.
Twelve large-scale paintings, and one video - all produced in the last year - adorn the walls of Waddington’s Cork Street space in the artist's breathtaking new exhibition Rhythms and Reflections. The paintings are a result of a phase of multimedia experimentation which began during Verdier’s time as the first visual artist-in-residence at the acclaimed The Juilliard School in New York in 2014.
Conceived by Vanessa Carlos, co-founder of Carlos/Ishikawa in Stepney Green, which represents the likes of Oscar Murillo and Ed Fornieles, this annual event allows galleries from around the world to transcend geographical boundaries and collaborate. What’s more, the whole scheme is based on generosity and mutual respect: participant galleries only have to pay their host a fee of £600 to cover expenses.
According to the dictionary an oxymoron is a figure of speech in which seemingly contradictory terms are syntactically conjoined, like the words “alternative” and “facts,” often to ridiculous effect. The French-Algerian artist Kader Attia, has explored similarly strange juxtapositions in his latest multimedia exhibition at Lehmann Maupin, a gallery on the Lower East Side. In a video installation titled Reason’s Oxymorons,
“Philip Guston makes an Agnes Martin,” is a phrase that Dan Walsh has often used in interviews to describe his work. Initially this is a rather weird analogy, thinking of an aesthetic marriage of a politicized figurative painter (following on Guston’s reformation from Abstract-Expressionism) and a transcendent abstract painter, whose work is often confused with Minimalism. You really have to scratch your head about “Guston x Martin,” borrowing the botanical “x” to symbolize the intergradient of two species.
In a brief word piece titled, “The Eccentricities of an Artist,” published in 1977, Yun Hyong-keun described his life as one without any clear distinction between living and playing. When it occurs to me, I secure my canvas and paint. At other times, I just sit absentmindedly. . . . Painting is thus enjoyable work. But when paintings do not work out, it feels like death. . . . In any case, just as I continue to eat and live, I continue to paint.
Metallic lips and outstretched tongues poised to lick. Acrylic nails, mouths crammed full of pearl necklaces and makeup-clad eyes – these are the images that come to mind when I think of Marilyn Minter, who I first discovered while absent-mindedly stalking Miley Cyrus’ Instagram. A blurred portrait showed Miley in all her usual glory - Hollywood white teeth, tongue out, licking a foggy window dripping in condensation.
Walking into the Rauschenberg restrospective at Tate Modern feels like the landing of Allied forces on the beach. A surge of raw, brilliant American energy on the banks of the river Thames. The works are powerful and as much ahead of their time today as they were fifty years ago. Tate’s show is the first full scale survey of Rauschenberg’s oeuvre since his death in 2008. The exhibition, produced with New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Matt Mullican has got them both: brains and brawn. If there were intellectual and athletic decathlons in contemporary art, Mullican would win handily. He has the genetic material, training, and discipline. Mullican is the son of artists Lee Mullican and Luchita Hurtado. His father’s work was shown earlier this year at James Cohan (New York). His mother’s work is currently on show at Park View (Los Angeles). Mullican’s brother, John, is a writer and documentary filmmaker. Few families have ”the right stuff” way this one does.
As first published on Artnet, written by Sarah Hyde. The major exhibition “Cy Twombly” opened this month at Centre Pompidou with 140 works of art, including drawings, sculptures, paintings, and photographs that have been thoughtfully brought together by curator Jonas Storsve. The hanging of the exhibition is broadly chronological, and blissfully uncrowded; visitors would be advised to allow plenty of time to fully experience the works included.
Tucked away in an elegant Georgian townhouse on Fitzroy Square, Flavie Audi’s kaleidoscopic glass creations at Tristan Hoare Gallery offer an otherworldly immersive experience. This is glass as you have never seen it before - experimental forms that inhibit a state far removed from the conventional everyday functions of the material. Glass is an underrated medium with regard to fine art; it thus provides an incredibly unique material for Audi’s opportunistic and insightful creative process, which she herself cites as experimental and innovative.
Revive! produced and curated by Sasha Galitzine and Olga MacKenzie invites a dynamic group of young artists to engage with the Crypt of St. Mary Magdalene’s Church, on the canals of Little Venice. All the works, including several performances, are specific to the site, both its physical layout and symbolic significance. Works have been placed where corpses were once laid to rest before burial. In its time, the church was built amidst a Victorian slum.
The smell of meat stock permeated all three floors of PS1. It was an unintended olfactory punch from the Kunsthalle’s in-house restaurant, M. Wells Dinette. Yet, the cloying, unctuous odor created an additional atmospheric in Mark Leckey's sensory assault. PS1 smelled like a fatty broth or stew in an English working man's café, which seemed sort of appropriate given Leckey’s self-described working class background.
Taken from an array of visual influences in film, art, television and music, France-Lise McGurn’s new exhibition Mondo Throb at Peckham-based gallery Bosse & Baum is an eruption of vibrant and sexually impulsive figurative paintings and drawings. Often extending beyond the confines of the canvas, McGurn creates an abundance of sensual imagery that spills out onto the walls and floor of the gallery. The composition and form of the layered figures developed from sketches derive from a multitude of influences.
Eloquently curated by Legacy Russell, Wandering/WILDING attempts to articulate the space that black artists have created between the polarity of flagrant and flaneur. The artists are responding to this dichotomy by creating works through media, dance and music - online- in an effort to reclaim the space that they might otherwise feel like they have lost. The significant political back-drop to the exhibition made me consider how successful the internet is as a metropolis for black mobility.
If you haven't yet heard of Kansas-born contemporary artist Charlie Roberts, you are in for a treat. Roberts' newest body of work Juicy is now on display at London's Marlborough Contemporary and showcases the artist at his very best. Juicy appears to be about the story within the story, but is it as simple as that? A hybrid collective of figurative and abstract compositions, Juicy is a visual storyboard that details the inspirations behind Roberts’ work.
Inside is both very beautiful, and very painful. - Beautiful because of the art that has been assembled, and the architecture of the prison itself. Painful because the prison does not, at first glance, look so terrible. It even resembles university halls of residence. Were they not called “cells” with bars at the windows and doors that lock from the outside, these would be premium, en suite rooms. But they are not, and never were. At one point the toilets were ripped out so that inmates could not use the pipes as a form of communication.
Articulately narrated and presented, the exhibition was created through the collaboration of curator Judith Clark and psychoanalyst Adam Philips. Taking Philips’ definition of “vulgar” as a starting point, the exhibition looks at 500 years of fashion through the prism of 20 different eras and themes. In Philip’s words: “vulgar is either what the vast majority of us are; or the vulgar are those who ... pretend to be something we would like to be.”
Diana Thater freely admits: “I couldn’t paint. So I decided I would do something I could do.” Monet was a favorite artist of Thater’s “because of the colors and images. People love Monet.” So while Thater chose not to paint using traditional media, she finesses it using electronic media along with natural and artificial light.
With President Obama’s historic visit to Cuba earlier this year, the world focuses with renewed interest on the influence of Cuban social history on Modern and Contemporary art. As such there could not be a better time for the Tate Modern’s monographic retrospective of work by Cuban-born Modernist turned Surrealist artist Wifredo Lam. The EY Exhibition has been organized in conjunction with the Centre Pompidou and the Musée national d’art moderne, Paris, and curated by Dr Matthew Gale.
Cultural America in the 1950s and 1960s was unrepentantly white. Before I attended university in upstate New York, my exposure to Black Americans was primarily through a handful of television and movie personalities, athletes, and musicians like, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., Sidney Poitier, Ernie Banks, and Harry Belafonte. At college on the cusp of the 1970s there were only six Blacks in my freshman class of 800. The campus was mostly white.
‘Love does not demand an axe’ – states one of the murals by Valery Chtak exhibited in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Along with ‘L’art c’est hip-hop’, ‘The fact that I am a Marxist does not mean I don’t care’ and other wannabe slogans and leftist maxims created and put on show by the Russian artist as a kind of self-explanatory manifesto and resume of his almost 20 years in art.
The emerging art market is cluttered with Internet-derived and -based art, most of which is instantaneously forgettable. This art is like scrolling idly and aimlessly through web pages during a conference call. There are artists who sample images and then awkwardly recombine them into Rosenquist-esque paintings with little regard for content or technique. Then . . . there are the few artists working in and around technology and the Internet who have something to say, clearly and confidently. Jason Matthew Lee falls into this rarefied category.
Sunday Art Fair is a youthful satellite fair running parallel to Frieze London, focusing on younger galleries showing emerging artists. Located accross from Madame Tussauds, Sunday is just a 10 minute walk through Regent’s Park from Frieze. Sunday takes over The University of Westminster’s Ambika P3, “a 14,000 square foot underground hangar once used to test concrete for Spaghetti Junction and the Channel Tunnel.” It is wonderful to step out of Regent’s Park and into a supersised science laboratory.
You want to touch. You want to feel the velvety surface of metamorphic rock, the cold clammy-looking surfaces of painted hard foam, the donkey's skull embedded in concrete, and the alien bronze form of a geometric shape. You want to feel the heft of every object, large and small. Everything is perfectly executed and flawlessly presented, like a luxury good in a showroom. "I was interested in science before I developed a taste for art," Moulène confesses in the exhibition's artist-annotated catalog.
Situated on the Old Marylebone Road, the white facade of the West London gallery PM/AM juxtaposes the surrounding red brick buildings. The gallery's white neon sign is reminiscent - not in a sleazy sense - of those found in the red light district of Amsterdam. It's punchy, memorable and certainly entices you into their space. Originally a garage for collectable cars, the interior remains
The heart of French artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz’s glorious new show is an exploration of how we write our own narratives through the spaces and objects around us. Utilising old and new work, found objects and the work of others, Chaimowicz has transformed the Serpentine Gallery in London into an immersive interior, that acts as a self-portrait or memoir to his own life and career
Invigorating, intense, emotional, dramatic. The art of Abstract Expressionism that originated in a world reeling from the uncertainty of the postwar years strongly resonates with the chaotic political climate of today. It delivers an inspiring message to the potential creators of today’s culture - where destruction took place in the twentieth century, creativity arose as a confident response, pioneering new techniques
“Work“ is the activity and “discipline” is the pervasive ethic in a diverse selection of seductive drawings, paintings, and sculpture that make up Kyle Thurman's current exhibition at Off Vendome. The works seem deliberately unrelated, reflecting a deeply conceptual – strongly Germanic – approach to art making, rare among the many one-medium, one-look artists. There is a unifying story here, nonetheless.
So wrote Germano Celant in 1967 in his post-exhibition manifesto, Arte Povera: Notes for a Guerilla War. Celant, now the Artistic Director of the Fondazione Prada in (Milan), linked the Italian neo-avant-gardes conceptually, rather than with or to any formal or stylistic bases. Celant saw the artists common desire to destroy "the dichotomy between art and life" with process-oriented practices.
We've all visited the leading art spaces in Paris, London and New York for our fix of contemporary art; yet not many have travelled as far as Moscow. But now, with the forward-thinking Garage, our attention is turning to see what the Russian capital has to offer. With five exhibitions, a renowned magazine, cutting-edge book shop, and open-air cinema, Garage has evolved into a creative hub like no other.
Writing in a present day 30° degrees London, lulled by the tropical chirping of now-local green parakeets, surrounded by issues of the National Geographic heralding the melting of the Antarctica ice caps, it is not hard to understand how the imagery evoked by Ballard captured the imagination of the Goss Brothers who recently launched a fashion line for Folk Clothing inspired by this prescient book.
Long before #instafood, #foodporn or #foodart became Instagrammable sensations, American artist Wayne Thiebaud had made a profitable and lengthy career out of it. Melting ice-creams in wafer cones, perfectly poised cherries on cinnamon buns and swirling dollops of sugar icing were the rising stars of his early compositions. You could say that Thiebaud paved the way for a modern obsession with beautiful food.
Where is Further Away? How far can our imagination carry us? To Cuba, to a place of little sense, to the boundary between life and death? The ten artists featured in this exhibition at Copeland Gallery do precisely that: they transport the viewer somewhere they have not ventured yet. Curated by India Dickinson, the journey begins with Ivo Morrison’s indigo fantasies, where oneiric worlds are shrouded in mystery and nostalgia.
Playful shapes in primary colours seem to defy gravity at Pace London this June. Joel Shapiro’s whimsically hung sculptures inaugurate the artist’s first solo exhibition at the London space, where seven vibrant sculptures and a selection of works on paper make for a subtle yet refined overview of Shapiro’s recent output.
Founded in early 2015 by Patrick Barstow, PM/AM is a gallery space, which aims to challenge the existing models that we use to interact with art. By introducing 3D glasses and ocular manipulation, Ry Bradley’s exhibition: 21th Century does just that. Juxtaposing the white and grey setting are Bradley’s kaleidoscopic pieces. French impressionism immediately springs to mind, as the paintings are reminiscent of Monet’s Water Lilies.
When asked about the title of his exhibition at Sotheby's New York headquarters, Hudson responded, "Sun city tanning is actually the tanning salon next to my studio in east London. When I Instagram, it always comes up as my location feed. But I thought it worked well for the title of the show in regard to ayahuasca being the drug of the "kale" age, and how churches and public buildings in urban cities..
Known for its cutting-edge commentary on contemporary art, the Turner Prize 2016 opened at Tate Britain, London on September 27th, marking its 32nd year in existence. As ever, this year’s prize attracted media scrutiny upon the early announcement of its four nominees back in May, inviting the usual refrains of "is it art?" and "what does it mean?" Fittingly then, the exhibition opens with Helen Marten’s (purposefully) enigmatic installations.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s retrospective at Tate Modern coincides with the much-anticipated Switch House extension, but has independently attracted thousands of summer visitors. It is perhaps because the great American modernist gave a voice to those influential female artists overlooked during the twentieth century. Curated by Tanya Barson, the exhibition brings together six decades of O’Keeffe’s work.
Tate Britain’s first exhibition celebrating the birth of photography and its consequential impact on British art of the Victorian and Edwardian eras quite frankly lacks the pizzazz needed to make it flash. With the curators adopting a comparative approach, juxtaposing original photographs and oil paintings in a simplistic ' two works depict the same subject matter kind of way' little is left to the imagination.
Heartbreak is at the root of Jorge Mayet’s latest exhibition Broken Landscape on view at Richard Taittinger Gallery, New York. Upon entrance the viewer is struck by a large upheaved tree, a hallmark of Mayet’s oeuvre and the repeated sculptural realization of this motif comprise his latest body of work. The uprooted trees fabricated from sponge, wire, papier-mâché, textiles and acrylics hang suspended in the gallery space creating an eerie hovering garden.
The ordered chaos of the Fitzroy Park Allotments on the edge of Hampstead Heath has lately been invaded. It has been besieged by a series of installations and site-specific artworks in an exhibition entitled Closer To The Veg, so that it's now overrun with the likes of ring-necked parakeets. So different is this exhibition curated by Olga Mackenzie and Sasha Galitzine that it's drawn many curious Londoners to see work by 16 artists.
In June the Culture Circle Gallery hosted a private view of the American artist Olivia Steele’s (b. 1985) new body of work Faux Real. Born in Nashville, Tennessee the contemporary visual artist lives and works between Berlin and Mexico. Olivia's artistic style is distinctive as she employs the commercial medium of neon glass.
Richard Serra once said, “I consider space to be a material.” In the case of Dia:Beacon, the primarily Minimalist art collection né box factory, his words ring true. The expansive space located in the upstate New York township of Beacon does not overwhelm the artworks but instead enhances the viewer’s experience of being both with the works and within them. The broad hallways, high ceilings and labyrinthine layout allow visitors to quietly navigate their own route.
Born in 1929, the 87 year-old Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, has been producing iconic and thought provoking works for more than six generations. Having exhibited her work in both galleries and museums around the world for decades – her last UK retrospective was at the Tate Modern in 2012 - there seems to be no sign that Kusama has any intention of slowing down. She is, in fact, more prolific than ever before.
In the grand hall of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London sits a giant clam shell, occupied at any time by a tourist attempting to affect that pose: weight on one leg, hip pushed into an alluring curve, a hand raised over a breast, the other clutching an imaginary rope of salt-encrusted hair over their modesty. Such is the enduring popular appeal of Sandro Botticelli’s (1445-1510) most famous painting, Birth of Venus...
Painting Made Me Do It is a group show focused on the physical act of painting with ideas drawn from Michael Blackwood’s documentary A Life Lived about Philip Guston. It features work from Hannah Bays, Asger Harbou Gjerdevik, George Little and Jessie Makinson - all of which have attracted serious interest across the London art world from the likes of Saatchi and Marcus Harvey of Turps Banana.
Over the past couple of years, Frieze New York has gained a reputation for being one of the world’s most influential contemporary art fairs with 202 galleries and 3 curated sections. Although Frieze has been running in Regent's Park, London since 2003, the New York version was only launched by Frieze Magazine in 2014. It's a testimony to the prestige upheld by the fair that New Yorkers..
The Sainsbury Wing’s newest guest is the French painter Eugene Delacroix, known for his impassioned works of Romantic art. Their current exhibition captures his influence on modern painters such as Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh and Gustav Courbet. With a diverse array of floral, allegorical and religious scenes, Delacroix’s expansive subject...
When I think of Vogue, I simultaneously think of glamour, beauty, haute couture and a world of unaffordable luxury that I will never be a part of. As I turn page after page of the latest edition, sipping my almond milk latte in a Parisian café in the septième I am, however, momentarily convinced that I am indeed a part of this world.
TEFAF Maastricht’s reputation precedes it and after a couple of days wandering around this extraordinary art fair, there’s no doubt that it’s Europe’s finest. The collection of art, photography, jewellery and antiques does not try to provoke or shock; it is elegant and sophisticated. Running until the 20th March it's not too late to attend. The fair upholds its core values of excellence, expertise and elegance, as it’s notoriously difficult for exhibitors...
Staging its first all-female show and coinciding with their 30th Anniversary is the Saatchi Gallery latest exhibition Champagne Life. There is a belligerent issue around the notion of all-female shows. Arguably, this deliberate 'all-female' label could be perceived as tokenistic, but I put it down to the fact that female insurgence is trending. Remember the HeforShe campaign, ‘tampon tax’ outrage or that ‘equal pay’ debate?
Set within the Courtauld Institute of Art, Artificial Realities is the twelfth edition of the East Wing Biennial, an iconic contemporary art exhibition in London. For the show artists have been brought together to explore the realm between reality and falsehood. With works by Anthony Gormley, Tracey Emin and Edmund de Waal, the sculptures, photographs, paintings and installations challenge the viewer to explore their own perception of reality.
The Sackler Wing’s latest retrospective celebrates the revered artist Francisco Goya, a Spanish romantic painter who worked during the 18th and 19th centuries, and who's portraits and wartime canvases are world-renowned. Goya made no effort to beautify or embellish the appearances of his which was unheard of at the time. Harking back to Keats’s declaration...
Alongside exhibitions of Lucio Fontana and Alberto Burri’s work in Mayfair this month, we now have another post war Italian painter joining the ranks. Afro Basaldella’s exhibition has just opened at the Connaught Brown gallery on Albemarle Street, London. Despite it being the night before the Frieze art fair’s private view, the gallery was overflowing with collectors, painters and...
The American artist Bruce Nauman was born in Indiana in 1941. From MoMa to Deutsche Guggenheim and even the Venice Biennial, his work has travelled the world. Nauman is known for his interdisciplinary approach. Engaging with existential dichotomies like love and hate as well as pleasure and pain, he has worked across a diverse array of mediums. His fascination...
I think that the Soundscapes exhibition at the National Gallery, London was what every art exhibition should be. There were only six paintings, but all of your senses were engaged and we left feeling enriched in mind, body and soul. What I loved about the exhibition was that it was one of the first times I've seen an audience sit, lie or stand before a work for more than the few seconds it takes to take a photograph or read the blurb. People were spending ten, even fifteen or ...
Richard Diebenkorn is an American modernist whose current retrospective at the Royal Academy has been declared a “blast of fresh air” by the Telegraph. Last exhibited in London at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1991, the time has come for his work to be reconsidered by a new generation. Moving between abstract expressionism, abstraction and figuration, we are swept up in the oeuvre of an artist who embodied the stylistic progression of twentieth-century American art.
For a man who was initially reluctant to adopt his father’s art dealing business, Paul Durand Ruel transformed Modern Art. What makes this exhibition so intriguing is we consider a movement from the perspective of an art dealer. This exhibition brings to light the talents of the “man who sold a thousand Monet’s” as he built the framework within which the Impressionists blossomed. Imagine an art world without Impressionism? That’s a world without sun-dappled gardens...
So wrote Germano Celant in 1967 in his post-exhibition manifesto, Arte Povera: Notes for a Guerilla War. Celant, now the Artistic Director of the Fondazione Prada in (Milan), linked the Italian neo-avant-gardes conceptually, rather than with or to any formal or stylistic bases. Celant saw the artists common desire to destroy "the dichotomy between art and life" with process-oriented practices.