art blog since 2009
In a town where one of the most risky things you can do is ride a log flume on a Grade-II listed pier, Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt are an anomaly. The Brighton duo known as Semiconductor have been to the real ends of the Earth to source material for their art. A new show …
June 23, 2011
As widely noted, the biggest shock of this year’s Turner Prize shortlist is painter George Shaw’s affinity with the enthusiasts who build model Spitfires. He doesn’t hide the fact that Humbrol enamel is his medium of choice. And it now looks like a conceptual statement carried to an extreme. He will have got through gallons. …
June 21, 2011
The big news this week is that criticismism was down for about 24 hours. Apologies to anyone who tried to visit on Thursday or Friday. Anyway, it’s back…with links: 18 war photographers talk about shots which almost got them killed in the Guardian. This is an agonising piece that somehow conveys more than the pictures …
June 19, 2011
The fridge looks nothing like my fridge. In truth it is more like a “dark mirrorâ€, a “walled garden†or a “monstrous insectâ€, all comparisons made by an anguished, robotic first person voiceover. Manufacturers Samsung surely realise they are in the business of fabricating metaphors. How else could they justify a $1,799 price tag for …
June 2, 2011
In April this year the story broke that now ubiquitous iPhones and 3G iPads are recording details of everywhere their owners go, storing locations and timestamps on a secret file. This may not be a conspiracy, but it would seem to be one more step towards a transparent world in which privacy belongs to a …
May 25, 2011
When a gallery is a deconsecrated church and the artwork is a piece of religious music, walking in is a hair’s breadth from turning up for Sunday worship. It’s humbling, even humiliating. The early choral work, Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, is drawing people in off the street, nevertheless. This is one church that’s …
May 11, 2011
By writing this I am making Cybraphon happy and by reading this you are making me happy. Here’s what criticismism has in common with an autonomous emotional robot. FOUND collective’s sculpture tracks hits to its own website and obsesses over its stats and indeed, like most bloggers, that is activity I can all too easily …
April 28, 2011
What could be more uncanny than neat piles of books actually underneath a desk, if not neat piles of books on a decidedly uncanny subject? In this case, automatic writing. For Gertrude Stein, to whom this sculpture is intended as a homage, the books represent a return of the repressed. The writer went from experimenting …
February 4, 2011
Putting out the flags has become the most recognised gesture of welcome in every part of the world. Here we all are, they say, together in our differing categories. Seen all at once, they inspire optimism. All these national emblems will fit on the end of a flagpole or a world cup wallchart, so it …
September 28, 2010
In case anyone is interested, here are some pieces written for Culture24 last week: Review: Art in the public realm at Liverpool Biennial Review: The John Moores Painting Prize, Walker Art Gallery Artist’s Statement: Alfredo Jaar at the Liverpool Biennial Artist’s Statement: Jonathan Baldock at the Liverpool Biennial Artist’s Statement: Wolfgang Tillmans at the Liverpool …
September 26, 2010