art blog since 2009
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
There’s an elephant in the room at the ICA. In fact, the elephant is the room. The spiritual home of the avant garde in London is a well-to-do Regency building on the capital’s grandest street. That alone could have been a reason for industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten taking pneumatic drills to the floor in 1984, …
June 14, 2011
Feel free to click through and enhance your day with one or more or all of the following: Winner of the Golden Lion at Venice is the 24-hr montage of real-time movie clips by Christian Marclay. Here’s a temperamental link to a video interview on the festival website and an old piece from BBC News. It’s …
June 12, 2011
In her much-talked about retrospective, the first piece of art is not by Tracey Emin. Nor does it seem much like a work of art. Despite the frame, it is clearly also a letter from her father. Halfway through the show is another work in which the art is hard to discern. This is a …
June 9, 2011
Nine mythical beasts which presage disaster are on the march. A wagon used to measure time and direction lies broken on the ground. If you didn’t laugh, you might cry. The snake with two tails foretells drought (Currently in Europe, tick). The boar with a human head foretells floods (Singapore, tick). The eagle with one …
June 7, 2011
You don’t have to go to Venice to be overwhelmed by the Biennale. Festival-related tweets have surely outnumbered the pigeons in St Mark’s Square. Here are some links from the floating city and beyond: In the Guardian, Rachel Withers tells you more than most about Mike Nelson’s installation at the British Pavilion. Writing on artnet, …
June 4, 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
Although there may be no candles in these painted scenes, there is arguably candlelight. There is certainly romance and the echoes of a nocturnal interior by, say, Georges de la Tour. And in this light the vulnerable nudes, of which there are three, also call to mind Rembrandt. It may be worked out they are …
May 31, 2011
Having been away for a few days, there seem to be some especially good reads this weekend: Art event of the week was neither an opening nor an auction sale, but surely a blog post and the 300 comments it generated. Suffice to say, Jonathan Jones doesn’t rate Mark Leckey. So much for the artistic …
May 28, 2011