art blog since 2009
Picking up his gong in the Breakthrough category at The Times/South Bank Show 2010 Awards, artist David Blandy might have thanked the man who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. During WWII, his grandfather was a prisoner of war and Japan’s surrender is said to have saved his life. “How do I reconcile my life and …
February 16, 2010
Exhibition: Urbis Has Left The Building: Six Years of the Best Exhibitions In Pop Culture, Urbis, Manchester, until February 27 2010 “Best of” compilations are usually the preserve of the music industry. So if any museum has the shows to get away with the same trick, it would have to be Urbis. Manchester’s poppiest gallery …
February 12, 2010
Exhibition: Back Buffer: New Arena Paintings, The Hannah Maclure Centre, Dundee, February 13 – April 30 2010 It is hard to imagine Jackson Pollock on a computer. But artist and inventor Julian Oliver has developed what you might call virtual action painting. Instead of attacking a canvas, Oliver uses software which gamers have long been …
February 12, 2010
Exhibition: Ian Breakwell – The Elusive State of Happiness, QUAD Gallery, Derby, February 13 – April 18 2010 Ian Breakwell led a well-recorded life. Between the 1960s and his death in 2005 he captured many of its details in a largely unpublished visual diary. Some is typed, some handwritten. There are drawings, photos and collages. …
February 12, 2010
Exhibition: João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva – On the Movement of the Fried Egg and Other Astronomical Bodies, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, until March 21 2010 After representing Portugal in Venice at the 2009 Biennale, João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva have pitched up in Birmingham for their first UK solo show. In near total …
February 11, 2010
Exhibition: Clare Rojas – We They, We They, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, until March 21 2010 Stepping into the first UK museum show by Clare Rojas is like stumbling upon the private chapel of a slightly mad Pagan with plenty of time, paint and a tall step ladder. Four walls in the first gallery are covered …
February 11, 2010
Exhibition: André Stitt – Substance, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, until March 6 2010 The 1970s and 1980s were André Stitt’s formative years. He lived in Belfast. Conflict and trauma may be his greatest artistic influences. In a city where people took sides, Stitt chose a truly committed medium: performance art. His work is hard hitting, …
February 6, 2010
Exhibition: Richard Grayson – An Exhibition, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, until March 14 2010 The show is simply called An Exhibition, but music and words feature as heavily as visual art in this five-year retrospective of works by Richard Grayson. A Country & Western band, from Australia, play tunes that occasionally borrow …
February 6, 2010
Exhibition: Star City: The Future Under Communism, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, February 13 – April 18 2010 With horizons sealed off by climate change and economic meltdown, it may be time to look backwards in order to start looking forwards again. Star City at Nottingham Contemporary presents visions of the future from behind the Iron Curtain. …
February 6, 2010
After a freakishly cold January, it is time to take a reading of the artistic temperature up and down the land. Here’s our guide to what’s hot in February. Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic, Tate Liverpool Europe, North America, Africa and South America are connected by two important things, black culture and a …
February 5, 2010