art blog since 2009
Work by modern day shaman Marcus Coates is on show at Milton Keynes Gallery in the first UK public space to hold a survey of the artist’s work. Psychopomp includes early film pieces, sculpture, sound, costume, photography as well as new work. In many of the pieces Coates goes to extreme lengths to commune with …
January 23, 2010
Self Portrait as an Artist by Van Gogh is a defining image of the modern artist. The blue smock and bright palette are shorthand for genius. The red beard hints at the wildness we expect from this self-destructive master. But alongside this painting, the Royal Academy offers us Van Gogh in context as a hard-working …
January 20, 2010
The GDR did not exist. So reads the graffiti which greets visitors to StadtLandschaften, a new show by Emma Stibbon. This scrawl appears in the foreground of an ink drawing which, like much of the artist’s work, shows the brick and mortar evidence that in fact the GDR did exist. But the Soviet era building …
January 15, 2010
Many will tell you that London is the centre of the art world. And if you had to choose a centre for art in that city, it would still have to be the East End. “It really is London’s cultural engine,” says Rachel Mapplebeck of Whitechapel Gallery. “It’s also got the highest concentration of artists …
January 15, 2010
London Art Fair, Business Design Centre, London, until January 17 2010 “The cynic,” Oscar Wilde once said, “knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” In which case, London Art Fair risks making cynics of us all. 136 galleries and dealers have set out their stalls at the Business Design Centre in Islington …
January 15, 2010
Nothing to do with art, just a vaguely entertaining seasonal story. Santa swaps sleigh for steam trains all across the UK. Read more.
December 4, 2009
Published on Culture24 David Blandy – Fortress of Solitude, 176 / Zabludowicz Collection, London, until Summer 2010 Strap on the artificial guitar and fire up the games console and you are ready to enter David Blandy’s world. It is indeed, as he demonstrates, a stage. We find our truth in the roles we play. Guitar …
November 26, 2009
Published on Culture24 The Sacred Made Real at The National Gallery, London, until January 2010 As you would expect from a pallid corpse in a darkened room, Dead Christ draws quite a crowd. Gregorio Fernández’s wooden bier is surrounded by a dozen curious visitors. If this was a roadside, they would be driving past slowly, …
November 25, 2009
Just Jack played at Concorde 2 and I went along for News of the World. Here’s the result.
November 16, 2009
Here’s a piece I wrote about Keats heritage sites for Culture24, all aimed to tie in with a certain movie.
November 15, 2009