art blog since 2009
New touring exhibition Tainted Love positions itself somewhere between group show and group therapy. Twelve artists have produced work with the theme of obsessive, one-sided love. At least they will now have company. “We’ve transformed the gallery with these partitions,†says artist and curator Corinna Spencer, speaking on the phone midway through the installation at …
May 4, 2012
This bench-like sculpture is made with showermats. The candy covered suckers draw the eye and hold the attention, so this work could be the most attractive in its show. But it seems perverse to pick out one artwork from an exhibition which was all about the interplay between pieces by Kox and her friend the …
April 29, 2012
A skull in a three dimension grid speaks of death and eternal life. This one belongs to a fox, at an end in physical terms, but which enjoys an afterlife of sorts in a gallery. The virtual scaffold which surrounds and appears to support the skull is the product of delicate handiwork. It is cropped …
February 17, 2012
You are in the HEROIN ROOM. You can see: a painting, a broken chair, a lighter and some tin foil. There are exits: SE, SW. What do you want to do? _ That’s not meant to be the worst dropped intro ever written, but a faithful reproduction of the game-like dynamics of one of Mike …
May 18, 2011
KutluÄŸ Ataman has got into the spirit of the Brighton Festival with a carnivalesque metaphor for the recent turmoil in the Arab world: a waterfall which defies gravity. (This reading of Mayhem needs its full context, a series named after a region encompassing Iraq, Iran and Syria. And nearby here is another piece (Su) in …
May 13, 2011
When a bronze gong is struck in the middle of an art gallery, does it make a sound? Well, according to Catalan artist Jaume Plensa, that might depend on you. The solemn clang of his well known work Jerusalem is not so much an aural phenomenon as a vibration of the heart. There are 11 …
April 14, 2011
Leading agriculturalists, politicians and intellectuals got together this March to explore how Roman farming techniques can help us protect the environment in 2011. The setting was Italy’s leading school of agriculture in Florence and the occasion was to mark 50 years of a journal of farming history, namely Rivista di storia dell’ agricoltura. This publication …
March 29, 2011
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
Fifteen years after its inception, Antony Gormley has revived the piece Critical Mass for the roof of De La Warr Pavilion. Since then his life-size casts of the human form have conquered London, New York and even Crosby Beach near Liverpool. They are contemporary icons. An inestimable number of people have seen these works first …
July 30, 2010
Here’s a belated round up of last week’s stories for Culture24. Click below on any that interest… Preview: Howard Hodgkin – Time and Place, at Modern Art Oxford Review: Ice Traffic in See Further: The Festival of Science and Arts at Royal Festival Hall Preview: Fiona Banner – Harrier and Jaguar, The 2010 Duveens Commission, …
July 4, 2010