On Monday, January 13 the Times (London) published a chirpy article by Ben Luke promising wonders to come in London’s official galleries during the coming year. I have to say that the prospects he offered didn’t look so wonderful to me – that is to say where contemporary art is concerned.
A New Year, a new decade – I’ve been thinking about all the things I currently don’t like about the contemporary art scene here in Britain. Most of all, I don’t like its pervasive self-righteousness, the ever-increasing assumption that ‘official art’ has all the answers.
In 1987, in a eulogy given at a Memorial Mass for Andy Warhol, the art historian John Richardson revealed the extent of Warhol’s Catholic devotion and faith. Richardson shared with the congregation of 2,000 at New York’s St Patrick’s Cathedral that Warhol had attended Mass several times a week at the St. Vincent Ferrer parish, […]
Art has incredible power. It is a force for cultural reflection, social change and an invaluable medium through which we challenge existing assumptions, broaden our outlook and catalyse change.
8 November 2019
The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize has come round once again, just as the announcement went out that the NPG will very soon close its doors for a much-needed update, and won’t be accessible again for three years. It’s hard to be entirely regretful about the hiatus.
Recently the Guardian newspaper here in Britain offered yet another of those ‘best of’ lists to which both the print press and websites of various kinds are now addicted. In this case, what it listed was ‘the best art of the 21st century’.
I have always had ambiguous feelings about the annual Masterpiece London fine art and antiques fair, now under the umbrella of the Art Basel Group.
Just recently Tate Modern was named as Britain’s most popular tourist attraction: 5.9 visitors went to the gallery last year. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it – that is till you do a bit more research.
In the aftermath of sentencing the exiled Russian artist Petr (AKA Pyotr) Pavlensky on Thursday, I ask myself why is he doing this? Is it for art? Or should we categorise him as an attention-seeking spoilt brat? Pavlensky was on trial for setting fire to the facade of a French central bank building, a performance […]