art blog since 2009
Exhibition: João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva – On the Movement of the Fried Egg and Other Astronomical Bodies, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, until March 21 2010 After representing Portugal in Venice at the 2009 Biennale, João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva have pitched up in Birmingham for their first UK solo show. In near total …
February 11, 2010
Exhibition: Clare Rojas – We They, We They, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, until March 21 2010 Stepping into the first UK museum show by Clare Rojas is like stumbling upon the private chapel of a slightly mad Pagan with plenty of time, paint and a tall step ladder. Four walls in the first gallery are covered …
February 11, 2010
Exhibition: André Stitt – Substance, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, until March 6 2010 The 1970s and 1980s were André Stitt’s formative years. He lived in Belfast. Conflict and trauma may be his greatest artistic influences. In a city where people took sides, Stitt chose a truly committed medium: performance art. His work is hard hitting, …
February 6, 2010
Exhibition: Richard Grayson – An Exhibition, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, until March 14 2010 The show is simply called An Exhibition, but music and words feature as heavily as visual art in this five-year retrospective of works by Richard Grayson. A Country & Western band, from Australia, play tunes that occasionally borrow …
February 6, 2010
After a freakishly cold January, it is time to take a reading of the artistic temperature up and down the land. Here’s our guide to what’s hot in February. Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic, Tate Liverpool Europe, North America, Africa and South America are connected by two important things, black culture and a …
February 5, 2010
Exhibition: Party!, The New Art Gallery Walsall, Walsall, February 12 – April 18 2010 The birthday bash of a 10-year-old can easily get out of hand. It certainly looks that way with an exhibition called Party! at the New Art Gallery Walsall. More than 50 artists feature in the show, which celebrates a decade since …
February 5, 2010
Exhibition: Afield & Louphole by Simon Whitehead, Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, Powys, February 6 – April 7 2010. With a background in both geography and dance, Simon Whitehead has an unusual CV. But it does mean he is well placed to stage physical encounters with landscape. Whitehead has been using ‘pedestrian practices’ to investigate the …
February 4, 2010
Zineb Sedira, Une Génération de Femmes, 1997. Courtesy: The Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester Walls Are Talking – Wallpaper, Art and Culture at The Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester, February 6 – May 3 2010 Wallpaper is often used as a pejorative term for art or music that asks for little …
February 4, 2010
The very first gallery pays homage to Ghandi. 4,479 fibreglass bones spell out a text which pleads for non-violence so it seems perverse to name this show The Empire Strikes Back. But violent reactions wait round every corner of the Saatchi Gallery’s 11 main spaces. On this evidence, Indian art causes shudders, sharp intakes of …
February 2, 2010
Put work in a gallery and it becomes art. Put it in a bin and it becomes rubbish. But put work in a bin in a gallery, and you may find it becomes both. Such is the strange new context for the many damaged pieces already piling up in the Art Bin. Take the glass-encrusted …
January 29, 2010