When Mr Ai was arrested on the 3 April while attempting to board a plane for Hong Kong several key factors were ignored by the Chinese authorities. These include the understanding that his profile is so high in the west that every move he makes is followed closely by the international media. Social networking has […]
Why the BP Portrait Prize has gone downhill Every year the National Portrait Gallery in London holds a portrait painting competition. This year more than 50 portraits have been selected for the annual event at London’s NPG. The competition is currently sponsored by BP (British Petroleum), the award is known as the BP Portrait award. […]
The Art Fund announced today plans to increase its funding for museums and galleries for exhibitions and purchases. The increase will be by over 50% by 2014. This is in response to the severe financial pressures facing most art institutions in the UK. The fund is committing £7 million a year to their funding programme […]
New Art Monument For Margate Turner Contemporary which had its unofficial opening last night is an ambitious arts centre hoping to elevate Kent’s Margate, a rundown former seaside resort into what Tate did for St Ives in Cornwall and the Guggenheim for Bilbao in Spain. Margate is shut and shuttered. Much of the town centre […]
Beck’s the brewers of excellent beer is sponsoring an Art related pub-crawl to celebrate their commitment to art and design. Well known artists have participated over the years by submitting designs for labels and glasses to the company. Big names like Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Richard Long Gilbert & George to name but a few […]
I had an unique opportunity to explore the new Joan Miro exhibition at Tate Modern today. “The Ladder of Escape” is the aptly titled theme of this body of Miro’s politically motivated legacy. The Spanish born Artist in the first London survey in over 50 years shines. It looks set to be another blockbuster to […]
New Miro Exhibition “The Ladder of Escape” Opens At Tate Modern Tate Modern’s new exhibition of Spanish born Artist Joan Miro titled “The Ladder of Escape” is the first London survey of the artist’s work in over 50 years. It looks set to be another blockbuster to follow in the footsteps of the recent Gauguin […]
Hedda Sterne,The last living artist, of the original New York Abstract Expressionist group who were immortalized in the Life magazine portrait known as, ‘The Irascibles’, has died age 100. In 1951 she featured alongside Theodore Stamos, Jimmy Ernst, Barnett Newman, James Brooks, and Mark Rothko, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, […]
A new sculpture of the Late “King Of Pop” Michael Jackson by Swedish-born artist Maria von Köhler has outraged Jackson fans in London and prompted numerous death threats to the recording studio where the work of art is installed. Premises Studios famous for past recordings by The Artic Monkeys and Amy Winehouse is located in […]
Controversy surrounds plans to dig up the grave of a Florentine woman thought to be the sitter of the Mona Lisa. A mausoleum will be searched and excavated in the next few weeks to try and identify the remains of a woman long thought to be the subject of the iconic portrait by Leonardo Da […]
The artist, Ai Weiwei,best known for his collaboration on the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing has been arrested in China again. Ai was arrested at the airport as he was going through immigration. The authorities separated him from the people accompanying him and turned off his mobile phone. It was also reported that eight […]
A key Post Impressionist painting by Artist Paul Gauguin, valued at over 100 million pounds was attacked and pulled from the wall by a mentally ill woman, on Friday, in Washington DC. The work which was the centerpiece of the Gauguin exhibition, “Gauguin: Maker of Myth.” which traveled from Tate Modern in London had recently […]
South of California’s state capital Sacramento, in the small town of Elk Grove (population 153,000) controversy is brewing. It all surrounds the commissioning of a civic centre by the highly acclaimed British/Iraqi born architect Zaha Hadid . It began eleven years ago, when the City Council launched an international design competition for a contemporary civic […]
The answer is yes. If this were were 30 years ago Andy Warhol would embrace Beiber fever as he did other classic personalities from the film and music industries. Bieber crosses all boundaries of gender. His sex-appeal is androgynous and his classic good looks appeal, not only to heterosexual pubescent girls but also to a […]
Figures released today place British Museums at the top, taking three out of the first five positions globally. Only the Louvre in Paris out does the UK by dominating the number one position. The British Museum comes in at number two with 5842,138 visitors. Tate Modern number four getting 5,061,172 through the door and the […]
1,333 arts organisations entered the new National Portfolio application process. 695 realised funding, leaving 638 to sink or swim. The organisations some new many established were all judged on their viability as a business model as well as their unique contributive artistic characteristics. The sucessful aplicants will receive funding over the next three years. New […]
“The ICA exists to challenge the foundations of contemporary art”, this is the pledge, from its new Executive Director Gregor Muir, made in an address to members on Saturday. It has been a turbulent 18 months. The sixty plus-year-old institution has pulled itself up from near bankruptcy with a deficit of £750,000 in 2010 to […]
26 March protest was a raving success Up to half a million protesters marched on London today. It was mostly a peaceful demonstration, against the 85 Billion GBP in cuts promised by the coalition Government, under Tory leader David Cameron. The march organized by the TUC was a family oriented day with all ages and […]
A new exhibition exploring the Art of Andy Warhol opens it’s doors to the public on the 27th March in Southampton. It explores a wide spectrum of mediums covering all periods of the artist’s output. The 200 plus works exhibited is part of the Tate’s and the National Galleries of Scotland’s Artist Rooms series deriving […]
Royal festival Hall Is Meet Up Point For Artists 10am Groups of artists protesting on the 26th March are meeting outside the Royal festival Hall on the other side of the embankment before marching across to join the much larger march. This will give everyone a chance to meet up with likeminded protesters. As many […]
The year the work was created Warhol stated; “I’m going to stop painting. I want my paintings to sell for $25 000” If only he knew! A portrait of Hollywood legend Dame Elizabeth Taylor is coming back onto the market after a short rest in a vault. It will be offered by Auctioneers Phillips de […]
Critical Creativity; Arts facilitate voice for the masses In March we march, we occupy, we resist and we insist. The short sighted cuts and budgetary realignments are not welcome or necessary here in Britain; healthier, more appropriate and sustainable alternatives exist. What we have witnessed in the past 9 months is a telling precursor to […]
St Pancras Renaissance Hotel Opens To Public The Royal Academy Schools Annual Auction, now in it’s in its fourth year featured Artist Grayson Perry and Actor John Hurt CBE as special guest speakers. The real star of the evening however, was the inauguration of the St Pancras Renaissance London Hotel, which after years of careful […]
Mike Nelson, the Loughborough born Artist, known for his atmospheric installations is this years British representative at the Venice Biennale. This is the first installation artist to be invited by the British Council to create a new work for the UK Pavilion. The Venice Biennale provides a barometer for contemporary art worldwide and this choice […]
Stolen – Damaged and Power-Washed! Will Banksy Survive? – New Group Forms To Protect Street Art Last month just before the Oscars several new works by the Bristol born Artist, Banksy (AKA Robin Gunningham) appeared in various locations in Los Angeles. A number of these works have now been stolen, vandalized and destroyed by local councils […]
This exhibition will bring together a major group of works by Jeff Koons as part of the ARTIST ROOMS series at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art,. From the early New Hoover Convertibles, Green, Red, Brown, New Shelton Wet/Dry 10 Gallon Displaced Doubledecker, 1981-7 to the basketball piece Encased Four Rows 1983-93 to Winter […]
100 artists, designers and actors have offered their help by funding the legal fees of students caught up in the tuition protests, taking place since cuts were announced, last autumn. Money will be raised through an auction of clothes and art work.The concept of the fund was launched by artist Jake Chapman. It offers to […]