art blog since 2009
Published on Culture 24 Exhibition: Made in Brighton, Ink_D Gallery, Brighton, until October 4 2009 For a small gallery, this is a big group show. Seventeen artists have been squeezed onto the wall of Ink_D in the North Laine. All are Brighton based and much of the work is Brighton inspired. So just how much …
October 2, 2009
Published on Culture 24 Exhibition: Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler, The British Museum, London, until January 24 2010 Before too long you come across a likely looking knife. The handle is sculpted into a crouching warrior and covered in tiny chips of turquoise mosaic. The blade is a vicious looking slice of obsidian. But according to the …
September 30, 2009
Published on Culture 24 MaxMara Art Prize for Women: Hannah Rickards, Whitechapel Gallery, London, until September 23 2009 If Hannah Rickards’ latest work tells us one thing, then personal accounts are not to be trusted. So perhaps don’t believe all you’re about to read. It centres on a phenomenon which takes place on Lake Michigan, …
September 26, 2009
Published on Culture 24 Dreamscapes, Art at Five, Brighton, until September 20 2009 Matisse famously said that a painting should be like a comfortable armchair. If so, Dreamscapes could well swallow you up and leave you gasping for air. There’s a lot going on in this pictorial upholstery. The exhibition flyer coins an intriguing phrase …
September 26, 2009
Published on Culture 24 Stephen Cornford – Works for Turntable, Permanent Gallery, Brighton, until September 20 2009 It seems unlikely the record players on display will ever make another sound. In place of one slip-mat, for example, is a stone wheel and a marble has been harnessed to the stylus. It is surely beyond repair, …
September 4, 2009
Published on Culture 24 Laissez-Faire – Alexandre da Cunha, Camden Arts Centre, London, until September 13 2009 Some artists take inspiration from nature, and some from light: however, Alexandre da Cunha must have taken inspiration from the acquisition of a job lot of industrial mop heads. The mops are now woven together to form a …
September 4, 2009
Published on Culture 24 I’m Lost Without Your Rhythm – Johanna Billing, Camden Arts Centre, London, until September 13 2009. Most conceptual art has a tendency to sharpen up the critical faculties. Johanna Billing’s video pieces, on the other hand, charm them into agreement. Be warned that this show could make you want to sing …
September 4, 2009
Published on Art and Music Take a Sad Song and Make it Better You Don’t Love Me Yet is a woeful, mixed-up song by a troubled singer from a trippy 60s rock band. But artist Johanna Billing is puzzled by Roky Erickson’s little known classic. “It’s quite a hopeful song,†she suggests, “Because it’s ‘You …
September 3, 2009
Published on Culture 24 Beyond These Walls, South London Gallery, until September 20 2009 Beyond These Walls opened on July 24, three weeks after a fire killed six people in a neighbouring tower block. It was a grim coincidence: this is a show about the gallery’s local context, and the disaster has highlighted the contrast …
August 24, 2009
Published on Culture 24 SANAA – 2009 Serpentine Pavilion, Hyde Park, London, until October 18 2009 The slim steel pillars of the 2009 Serpentine Pavilion don’t so much hold the structure up as keep it tied down. The roof looks weightless and amorphous. At one point it is anchored just a metre above ground; elsewhere …
August 21, 2009