art blog since 2009
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
A man enters a room and punches a clock every hour on the hour for 365 days. It is like something from the Guinness Book of Records. The achievement is so athletic it transcends art. But there is nothing quirky or sporty about the current exhibition of Tehching Hsieh’s performance. More than 8,000 documentational photographs …
September 23, 2010
You won’t find a more accommodating piece of art than The Marx Lounge. The sofas are as comfortable as they look. The walls are a warm shade of red. The light is perfect for reading. Then there are books. Some 1,500 paperbacks are stacked on a central table, which means the room is designed to …
September 19, 2010
The pigeon is an unlikely emblem of civic pride. They are not lions or liver birds. They confer no distinction. Even towns have them. Even some villages. But Milton Keynes is no ordinary place. Unlike most of the UK it is built on a grid system and the boulevards have numbers which reach into the …
September 14, 2010
In a week artists have rallied round a David Shrigley animation and a petition against cuts to public funding, a show which seems to offer its own discreet protest opened at Grey Area. The Butler’s Cough by Simon Morse draws polite attention to a series of 12 customised control panels, such as you might find …
September 12, 2010
Work No. 117 by Martin Creed is a jokey little number. It consists of an audio tape on which can be heard, as advertised, every noise on a drum machine played in sequence. As it runs the gamut of automated sounds, it sounds like an ironic comment on the technology used. The machine sounds, well, …
September 7, 2010
As the heart relates to the body, so does this piece of land art relate to both its geographical setting as well as the social context in which it was created in 2005. Its location is a nature reserve in the centre of Lewes, a town of more than 16,000 people. Such wild habitats, it …
September 3, 2010
You would think it was put there for the children. The dinosaur stands at a picnic spot, 30ft high, robust enough to throw stones at, as some of the kids are doing. So close to a beach and a circus, a hoverport and an amusement arcade, it looks here like one more piece of spectacle. …
August 31, 2010
As Tate Modern blew out ten candles on its birthday cake this year, there was reason to think it has been lucky. The Bankside gallery has lived through a decade of turbulence in the wider world. This century has been filled with war, terror and recession, not the best conditions for an infant. But if …
August 30, 2010