Opinion Archives

Bill Viola And The Art Of Contemplation – Revd Jonathan Evens

In welcoming Bill Viola’s installations at St Paul’s Cathedral, Mark Oakley noted that: ‘Viola’s art slows down our perceptions in order to deepen them.’

Zombie Formalism: Ticking The Right Boxes Be Damned – Edward Lucie-Smith

I’ve been looking again at Georgina Adam’s recently published book, The Dark Side of the Boom (Lund Humphries). It ranges over a wide variety of contemporary art world topics and is quite largely concerned with recent art world misdeeds – that is, with the commercial rather than the official sector of art world activity, insofar as these can be fully separated from one another.

2018 A Melancholy Year For Art Exhibitions In Britain – Edward Lucie-Smith

It has been in many ways a somewhat melancholy year for art, here in Britain – or should I say: ‘here in London’? -since pretty well all the shows I will mention here took place in a capital city that seems to be drifting steadily away from the rest of Britain.

Has Frieze Become More About Instagram and Less About Art?

I’m what you could call a seasoned Frieze regular. I may have missed the first London fair but I was soon sucked into the great black hole of mega-international art fairs and beamed myself out beyond London to Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach, not to mention the first Frieze in New York. Galleries […]

The Decline And Fall Of The Turner Prize – Edward Lucie-Smith

There can be no doubt that the Turner Prize is pretty much of a sick puppy right now.

Women Need More Recognition For Their Contribution To Visual Arts – Edward Lucie-Smith

Nobody, I think, could be keener than I am to see women obtain more recognition for their creative contribution to the visual arts.

Populist Matters: The Rise and Fall of London’s Museum Attendance – Edward Lucie-Smith

At a time when London’s big art museums are going all out to be populist, they also seem to be witnessing a fairly general fall in attendances.

Blue Chip Bling Art Features In New Las Vegas Gambling Palace

High value bluechip contemporary art displayed at alternative venues is usually something that excites us here at Artlyst; however,

Royal Academy Renewed: Integrating Culture With Daily Life – Edward Lucie-Smith

The Royal Academy’s radical extension of its premises including some splendid new exhibition spaces and an imposing new lecture-theatre excites me, but also generates some doubts and mixed feelings.

The Art Of Smug Turner Prize 2018 – Edward Lucie-Smith

This year’s list of finalists for the Turner Prize has just been announced. While the names on the shortlist are virtuously unfamiliar, the general artistic direction is not.

Picasso To Souza: The Crucifixion Imagery Rarely Exhibited – Revd Jonathan Evens

Overshadowed by iconic images from Picasso 1932 and Bacon/Freud two of the Tate’s current exhibitions feature powerfully expressive crucifixion images.

Stuckism Is Alive And Well And Living In Prague – Edward Lucie-Smith

I’m just back from a visit to Prague. I went there specifically to see an exhibition of new British painting organised by an organisation called ArtLines

David Bowie Statue Not Fitting A Man Who Loved Fine Art

The latest in a long line of examples is a new statue honouring the late artist David Bowie, unveiled over the weekend in Aylesbury.

Tate’s Big Faux-Pas: Picasso Exhibition Opens On International Women’s Day

Today (8th March) is International Women’s Day, it’s also the public opening of the new Picasso exhibition at Tate Modern. For those of you familiar with Picasso and his self-mythologized monster; you may need to read that sentence again.

Pablo Picasso: Genius Or Just Another Misogynistic Pig – Edward Lucie-Smith

With Pablo Picasso 1932 – Tate Modern’s major exhibition for the first half of this year – ready to open (March 8th), the drumbeats are already beginning.

Edward Lucie-Smith Bids A Final Farewell To The Avant-Garde

The contemporary art world seems an increasingly strange place to be.

Frank Gehry: Fondation Louis Vuitton Paris – An Architect’s Impression – Alex Murray

I had never experienced a Frank Gehry up-close. Never stood slack-jawed, gawping at the gymnastic splendours that the photographs in the glossies promise.

Sean Scully Indisputably The Most Universal Living Contemporary Artist- Edward Lucie-Smith

One name immediately sprang to mind – that of the born Irish, once British, now American painter Sean Scully.

Things I Hate About The British Art World Today – Edward Lucie-Smith

The British contemporary art world is apparently in a healthy state at the moment.

Elisabeth Murdoch Appointed To Arts Council England National Council – Should We Worry?

On 5th December, seven new appointments were quietly made to Arts Council England’s (ACE) National Council, its governing board. This included the controversial choice of Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Basquiat: Colour Blind Expressions Of A Society Unheard – The Barbican

Basquiat used what he knew was out there on the streets the injustices towards black people.

Matisse vs The Multi-Cultural Multi-Ethnic 21st Century Art World – Edward Lucie-Smith

I went to see the R.A.’s new Matisse show, but not at the press view, as I was abroad. I did go very shortly after it opened. Not unexpectedly, it was jammed with visitors, and I mean jammed. You had to dodge round backs to get a proper view of some of the smaller items, notably the drawings.

Virtual Masterpiece The Masterpiece Art Fair By Edward Lucie-Smith

What people choose to describe as ‘a masterpiece’ is usually pretty much a matter of context. On the whole, at this annual beanfeast for conspicuous consumers, you won’t find much in the way of graffiti art lurking around, though it’s just possible that you might be confronted with a work by Jean-Michel Basquiat now that he’s included in the pantheon of artists with multi-million dollar price tags.

Qatar Boycott: Will It Marginalise The Region’s Cultural Renaissance?

Last October I was in Doha the capital of Qatar which seemed like a well-oiled machine when it came to Art, Education, and Culture.

Tate Britain Comes Out – Queer British Art 1861–1967 By Simon Tarrant

Imagine in 1988 the public furore if the Tate had hosted an exhibition of queer British art – marking the 21st anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which decriminalised private homosexual acts between men over 21 in England and Wales.

Michelangelo Plaster Casts More Convincing Than Sebastiano – National Gallery – Edward Lucie-Smith

The current Michelangelo & Sebastiano show at the National Gallery here in London is very much the kind of exhibition that one feels a great institution ought to be doing: spaciously presented, tirelessly scholarly, you couldn’t wish for a better introduction to these major names in Italian Renaissance art.

Fourth Plinth Commission “Good For A Disposable Laugh” – Edward Lucie-Smith

The next two occupants of the so-called Fourth Plinth Commission in Trafalgar Square have just been announced and, true to form, the British visual arts establishment has laboured and given birth to a mouse. Or, to be fair, to two mice, one of them just slightly larger than the other. I speak not in terms of size, but in those of probable effect.

George Boorujy An Artist Highlighting And Protecting Our Precious Natural World

Artist George Boorujy feels particularly pumped to take on the environmental cause, especially since ‘Day One’ the Environmental Protection Agency has been quieted with regard to global warming. Boorujy, an artist devoted to highlighting and protecting our precious natural world says, “This shouldn’t be a partisan issue! Democrats, as well as Republicans, need to breathe.