art blog since 2009
A man enters a room and punches a clock every hour on the hour for 365 days. It is like something from the Guinness Book of Records. The achievement is so athletic it transcends art. But there is nothing quirky or sporty about the current exhibition of Tehching Hsieh’s performance. More than 8,000 documentational photographs …
September 23, 2010
You won’t find a more accommodating piece of art than The Marx Lounge. The sofas are as comfortable as they look. The walls are a warm shade of red. The light is perfect for reading. Then there are books. Some 1,500 paperbacks are stacked on a central table, which means the room is designed to …
September 19, 2010
The pigeon is an unlikely emblem of civic pride. They are not lions or liver birds. They confer no distinction. Even towns have them. Even some villages. But Milton Keynes is no ordinary place. Unlike most of the UK it is built on a grid system and the boulevards have numbers which reach into the …
September 14, 2010
You would think it was put there for the children. The dinosaur stands at a picnic spot, 30ft high, robust enough to throw stones at, as some of the kids are doing. So close to a beach and a circus, a hoverport and an amusement arcade, it looks here like one more piece of spectacle. …
August 31, 2010
As Tate Modern blew out ten candles on its birthday cake this year, there was reason to think it has been lucky. The Bankside gallery has lived through a decade of turbulence in the wider world. This century has been filled with war, terror and recession, not the best conditions for an infant. But if …
August 30, 2010
To reduce it all to economics, which is often tempting, artists make product to make money, or a living at least. Those who do not manage this, still put value on their work. Say the artwork’s function is to generate revenue. It has done so historically by being beautiful and hence desirable, and from the …
August 27, 2010