art blog since 2009
This blog entry is being put together to the sound of The Fall, in an attempt to understand why so many artists claim, or are said, to draw or paint to the sound of Mark E Smith’s timeless band. Usual conditions for producing these musings are, for the record, a joyless silence. There seems to …
July 7, 2010
Tabaimo’s animations are without doubt unsettling. But the more you watch yudangami (2009) the more you want to watch and the same can be said for her entire show at Parasol Unit. It would be rational to look away, but the films deal in revealing the hidden. No wonder they are compelling. In yudangami the …
July 4, 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
Book review: The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell, pp.992, published by Chatto & Windus Of all the millions killed in WWII, the fate of a fictional character has concerned me more than any. Stranger still, I have found myself rooting for a German and a high ranking SS officer at that. The same might be …
July 1, 2010
Perhaps all art has ever done is provide visual enjoyment, depsite the questionable values inherent in traditional, modern or contemporary subject matter. Fiona Banner’s latest commission at Tate Britain is indeed problematic, but without question it is still enjoyable. The London-based artist has installed two decommissioned fighter planes in the neoclassical Duveens Gallery. One, upside down, …
June 29, 2010
Here’s another round up of my week’s output for Culture24. Happy reading… Review: Lucienne Cole, Karen Mirza & Ruth Beale, Phil Coy and Alex Pearl at Whitstable Biennale Preview: Persistence of Vision at FACT, Liverpool Preview: Wolfgang Tillmans at Serpentine, London
June 26, 2010
It must be tempting for an artist to think the painted, drawn or sculpted subject has a life beyond the canvas, page or block. This was maybe the original impulse of art – with cave paintings as an invocation for the success of the tribal hunt. Most paintings of beauty could be viewed the same …
June 26, 2010
Take one iPod and Spotify addict, give him the text of a lecture by John Cage, take away his music for a week, and see what happens. It was a recent, quite unscientific experiment and the guinea pig was me. The first few days were harsh. Putting on the stereo was one of those things …
June 22, 2010
Here’s a round up of the pieces I wrote for Culture24 last week. Enjoy! Review: Surreal Friends: Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horne at Pallant House Review: James White: New Paintings, Max Wigram Gallery Review: Clare Twomey: A Dark Day in Paradise, Brighton Pavilion Review: Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception, Tate Modern
June 20, 2010
Like many a great still life, this one by James White is a dazzling piece of representation. But the scene represented is at one remove, painted from a photograph. His use of black and white draws attention this fact, as skilful as the reproduction may be. The result is a literal sort of photo-realism. It …
June 16, 2010