art blog since 2009
Here are my visual arts picks from around the UK for March. Written for Culture24. Richard Hamilton – Modern Moral Matters, Serpentine Gallery, London 60 years after his first solo show, Richard Hamilton is still making loaded images. His show at Serpentine is a mixed media commentary on conflict in Northern Ireland, the Middle East …
March 4, 2010
Exhibition: Jordan Baseman – The Most Powerful Weapon in this World, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, until May 9 2010 Jordan Baseman knows a thing or two about juxtaposition, as you might expect from an artist with roots in the US who now lives and works in the UK At Baltic he uses unlikely …
February 27, 2010
Exhibition: Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Parasol Unit, London, until April 25 2010 “Human dramas” may bring to mind the worst sort of sunday evening TV, but don’t be put off by Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s description of her own work. It’s true the Finnish video artist deals with universal themes, such as love and death. Her primal emotions and …
February 27, 2010
Exhibition: Tom Pope – The Escapades of the Higher Man, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea, until April 18 2010 Having foreseen the coming of the Higher Man, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had, surely, grand deeds in mind. He could not have predicted a photographer from Bristol would come along and try to catch a bucket of …
February 25, 2010
The end of the world is nigh in the art of Richard Grayson. But we might just be saved by work like this. It has a light touch, which never gives way to despair. There is irony even in the title of Ways The World Ends. Competing prophecies are ranged against one another in acid-coloured …
February 22, 2010
Exhibition: Tatton Park Biennial 2010 – Framing Identity, Tatton Park, Knutsford, May 8 – September 26 2010 Stately homes and historic properties may often throw open their doors, but they don’t usually open themselves up to critical interrogation. For the 2010 Tatton Park Biennial, 21 contemporary artists were invited to respond to the mansion and …
February 18, 2010
Exhibition: Anthony Schrag – Wrasslin’, The Punch and Judy Gazebo, Margate Beach, February 20 2010 Scrapping on Margate beach sounds like the antithesis of art, but this Saturday artist Anthony Schrag will be on hand to wrestle with the public. Advance publicity offers the chance to use him as a “human punchbag”. It claims that …
February 18, 2010
Exhibition: Marcus Coates – Psychopomp, Milton Keynes Gallery, until April 4 2010 It is amazing what Marcus Coates gets away with. A film called Journey to the Lower World shows him inform tower block residents that he has been to the spirit kingdom to consult animals about their fate. To get there, he reveals, he …
February 16, 2010
Exhibition: Here and Now – 2nd Year Fine Art BA (Hons), University of Brighton, until February 23 2010 It will typically take an art student three years to hone their technique, but to give a piece a great title can be the work of seconds. Here and Now is a group show by second year …
February 16, 2010
Picking up his gong in the Breakthrough category at The Times/South Bank Show 2010 Awards, artist David Blandy might have thanked the man who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. During WWII, his grandfather was a prisoner of war and Japan’s surrender is said to have saved his life. “How do I reconcile my life and …
February 16, 2010