art blog since 2009
Art is getting noisier. Galleries echo with moving image installations. The quieter ones provide you with audio-guides. Sound is now such a vital dimension of art, some artists are making art about that very phenomenon. In a boxlike construction at Ikon in Birmingham, you can pull up a beanbag and enjoy some music. On a …
May 12, 2010
A new three-year arts education programme was launched at the Royal Academy of Arts this morning by a panel which included London mayor Boris Johnson. The Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project brings together five leading London galleries and will offer young people aged 13-25 a glimpse behind the scenes. Tate Britain, Hayward Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery …
May 12, 2010
Most people would find the prospect of entertaining several thousand people in their own home somewhat daunting. But throughout May in Brighton, such are the visitor numbers for a typical address in the Artists’ Open House festival. Citywide that adds up to around 230,000 guests. It is no wonder that home-loving artists from Hanover to …
May 10, 2010
Few living artists get as much exposure as Spencer Tunick. But then again this live installation specialist and photographer works exclusively with nudes, hundreds and sometimes thousands of them. His latest project, shot over Bank Holiday weekend, is set in Salford and Manchester. Tunick is using the project as a response to the region’s best …
May 5, 2010
Going to review Boy George for News of the World was an interesting experience. The audience was full of die hard fans, grannies and members of the Hare Krishna. You can read the results, here.
May 1, 2010
Cities without an established home for contemporary art might well look with interest at a solution found by artists in Brighton and Hove this May. House Festival 2010 is a temporary gallery with nine rooms spread around the twin coastal resorts, in venues as diverse as a Regency townhouse, a day centre and a garden …
April 30, 2010
Exhibition: Underwater, Towner, Eastbourne, until June 20 2010 In the landscapes paintings of Eric Ravilious, the South Downs look like green waves in a rough sea, at least they do so after a visit to Underwater at Towner. The Eastbourne gallery has a reputation for landscape art and the local painter is one of many …
April 28, 2010
Exhibition: Modern Times, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, until June 13 2010 Somewhere between art and architecture sits a drawing by minimalist sculptor Fred Sandbeck. His pencil and chalk plan for a Zurich gallery construction hovers in mid air, reminding us of the Utopian potential of pictorial space. The architectural role of this work would …
April 24, 2010
Exhibition: From Sickert to Gertler – Modern British Art from Boxted House, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, until September 12 2010 Long before Brit Art, there was British Art. In the early 20th century this was typified by the painterly, figurative work of a group centred around Camden in London. Compared with contemporaries in Paris, …
April 19, 2010
Exhibition: Shuruq Harb – A Book of Signatures, Ikon, Birmingham, until May 16 2010 Mohammed is not a name like any other. Moreso than say, John, it is also a religious label. In secular or non-muslim societies it has the potential to stigmatise its bearer. But in Shuruq Harb’s homeland, Palestine, more than 250,000 men …
April 17, 2010