art blog since 2009
Sixties Pop Art had a “culpable banality” and Andy Warhol’s sculpture of Brillo boxes was a “real travesty”, according to one of the movement’s pioneers, Gerald Laing. The Scottish artist features heavily in a new show at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, in which Pop Art finds politics. Many of the works are from the past ten …
June 3, 2010
Exhibition: Mark Leckey and Martin McGeown: Life and Times of Milton Keynes Gallery, Milton Keynes Gallery, Milton Keynes, until June 27 2010 900 Midsummer Boulevard does not sound like an address for a provincial English gallery. But then again, Milton Keynes is not just any other provincial English town. Conceived as a utopia, it is …
June 2, 2010
Exhibition: A Horse Walks Into A Bar, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, June 18 – August 8 2010 That a non-domestic animal in a pub should occasion hilarity tells us something about our relationship with nature. The proverbial horse in a bar is an old joke. Perhaps the nine artists in this group show at Castlefield Gallery …
June 2, 2010
Exhibition: Lily van der Stokker – No Big Deal Thing, Tate St Ives, St Ives, until September 26 2010 The last great taboo in art appears not to be death, sex or religion. Instead, Lily van der Stokker suggests it is niceness. The Dutch artist works in coloured pencil and pastel colours. She draws on …
May 27, 2010
Exhibition: Mitch Griffiths – The Promised Land, Halcyon Gallery, London, until May 31 2010 It has been said that being unfashionable is a sure way to get in fashion. If that be the case, Mitch Griffiths might soon come into ironic vogue in the same way as socks and sandals are now in some circles …
May 26, 2010
Exhibition: The City and The Stars, Stills, Edinburgh, until July 18 2010 Art tends to get categorised by medium rather than subject matter. Sci-fi may exist in literature, but fantasy art remains a pejorative term. So the latest show at Stills, coinciding with the Edinburgh Science Festival, takes its title from a book. The City …
May 18, 2010
Exhibition: Otto Zitko and Louise Bourgeois – Me, Myself and I, Arnolfini, Bristol, until July 4 2010 Born in 1911, Louise Bourgeois has been drawing for nearly a century. Her recent works are “about the marking of time while waiting for someone special to arrive”, according to the French artist herself. Her series of 60 …
May 18, 2010
No animals. No nudity. No feeding the customers. Apart from that almost anything goes at No Soul For Sale. 50 non-profit art organisations from around the world have been invited to set up a stall in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. By the time dusk falls, the scene is a wonderfully confused mess. They …
May 15, 2010
Here’s a selection of half a dozen of the most exciting contemporary art shows from around Britain this month. Written for Culture24. Agnes Martin, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge Martin’s minimal paintings, characterised by airy colours and hand-drawn grids, map out a fragile, yet peaceful, interior world. It makes sense that the Canadian-born artist took to painting …
May 15, 2010
Exhibition: Tatton Park Biennial 2010 – Framing Identity, Tatton Park, Knutsford, Cheshire, until September 26 2010. Living in a stately home might just be the quintessential British fantasy, and Tatton Park in Cheshire is certainly the quintessential stately home. “People come here with a plan,” says co-curator Jordan Kaplan. “I’ll go to the house, I’ll …
May 15, 2010