27 January 2012
Turner and the Elements exhibition arrives at Margate’s Turner Contemporary, and reminds us of the literal truth in the expression; ‘Turner was a painter of light’ With this exhibition of over 80 paintings at Margate’ Turner Contemporary, J.M.W Turner has come home: not only home to Love Lane where he was schooled; and home, also, […]
25 January 2012
Raphael Hefti @ Camden Arts Centre – REVIEW Swiss artist Raphael Hefti’s first solo show in the UK is both smart and visually beguiling. Claiming to have spent a decade ‘subverting’ and ‘interfering’ with material processes, the fruits of these labours are well worth a look, and act as an irreverent counterpart to the intensity […]
25 January 2012
Hanne Darboven @ Camden Arts Centre – REVIEW The first UK solo exhibition of the late German artist Hanne Darboven is daunting, overwhelming, and completely monumental. Following an internal and deeply personal logic, the artist works with all forms of letters, numbers, graphs, musical scores and calendars to question the human construction and experience of […]
25 January 2012
Working Papers: Donald Judd Drawings, 1963-93 @ Spruth Magers – REVIEW A giant of American Minimalism, and an early advocate of the idea that it is the end, and not the means of art, that is its merit – we have here a fascinating insight into Donald Judd’s mind at work. Curated by Peter Ballantine, […]
25 January 2012
Pietro Ruffo: The Political Gymnasium @ Blain/Southern – REVIEW Italian artist Pietro Ruffo, having recently been awarded the Premio Cairo Award and the New York Prize, draws on research he conducted whilst a fellow at Columbia University to give us a fully politico-philosophical assault on the senses. […]
23 January 2012
Gary Hume: The Indifferent Owl @ White Cube – REVIEW The White Cube (Mason’s Yard and Hoxton Square) presents us with an exhibition of new works by Gary Hume – an artist ever-faithful to his trademark high-gloss lacquer paint on aluminum, and with a deepening interest in sculpture. Hume made his name, alongside the other […]
19 January 2012
Zarina Bhimji @ Whitechapel Gallery – REVIEW Zarina Bhimji, tjhe Uganda-born artist nominated for the 2007 Turner Prize, presents an incredible selection of work from the last 25 year, including the premiere of her new film ‘Yellow Patch’, at the Whitechapel Gallery. The exhibition opens with Bhimji’s new film on Indian-African trade history, ‘Yellow […]
18 January 2012
Alberto Burri: Form and Matter @ Estorick Collection – REVIEW This small but compact exhibition at the Estorick Collection presents the work of Italian artist Alberto Burri (1915-1995), and is the first solo show of his work held in the UK for sixty years. The purpose of this exhibition, at least in part, is to […]
17 January 2012
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture – REVIEW So here it is. The first major blockbuster exhibition of 2012, and the event kicking-off the London Cultural Olympiad – David Hockney: A Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy of Arts. Bringing together over 150 works, the majority of which have been created in the last 8 years, […]
16 January 2012
January exhibitions at the AA – REVIEW There are two new exhibitions now showing at the Architectural Association: H.O.R.T.U.S. – an installation by ecoLogicStudio (on the first floor, next door to the café) – and Critical Territories, which presents the work of two experimental interdisciplinary practices, Groundlab and Plasma Studio (in the ground floor gallery […]
16 January 2012
We review the January exhibitions at London’s Zabludowicz Collection Currently showing at the Zabludowicz Collection is ‘Future Map’ – a survey of the best talent to graduate from the University of the Arts London’s six colleges – and ‘Zabludowicz Collection Invites… Benedict Drew’ – a new initiative where the collection selects a young, currently un-represented […]
13 January 2012
Review of Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn (Ceramic Works, 5000 BC – AD 2010) at the V&A Having just been named third in Time magazine’s Person of the Year, there has never been a better time for this exhibition of Ai Weiwei’s ceramics. Oddly, then, the V&A have given it a rather muted reception, neither advertising […]
12 January 2012
Gagosian opens 11 simultaneous exhibitions of Damien Hirst’s Spot Paintings internationally: we review the London offering Damien Hirst has been given a hard time throughout his career, whether its David Hockney lashing out at the army of assistants working for Hirst Inc., or one of the many critics lampooning his work as lightweight one-liners. So […]
15 December 2011
The ICA is overflowing with young hopefuls eager to make waves; ArtLyst tests the water As Virginia Woolf claimed of books, perhaps so with works of art; ‘If they need shoring up by a preface here, an introduction there, they have no more right to exist than a table that needs a wad of paper […]
9 December 2011
White Cube Bermondsey stages UK’s largest ever Anselm Kiefer exhibition to great effect Almost three years after his last show at White Cube, and the legendary sculpture/painter Anselm Kiefer is back – and back with a vengeance. Sprawling across 11,000 sq ft of crisp white gallery space, ‘Il Mistero delle Cattedrali’ is the largest ever […]
8 December 2011
French Conceptual artist Daniel Buren returns to UK to remind us what all the fuss is about Daniel Buren: One Thing To Another brings everything that makes the work so affecting outdoors, indoors; and, in process, transforms the interior rooms of the Lisson gallery into what feels like a series of exterior spaces. His first […]
8 December 2011
‘One knows that, by some accidental brushmarks, suddenly appearance comes in with a vividness that no accepted way of doing things would have brought about’ – Francis Bacon This, according to Francis Bacon, is ‘the mystery of appearance in the mystery of making’ – the title and structuring concept for the major new exhibition of […]
7 December 2011
First major UK retrospective of late artist Lygia Pape opens at the Serpentine -Magnetized Space – firming up her reputation as the Mother of Brazilian Contemporary Art Magnetized Space is the first major exhibition of Lygia Pape’s work to be presented in the UK. As the central founder of Neo Concretism – the movement considered by […]
3 December 2011
‘The Spanish Line: Drawings from Ribera to Picasso’ seeks to rehabilitate a much-maligned and ill-defined school of draughtsmanship, but ultimately disappoints Charting a development from piety to pigsties, the Courtauld’s exhibition of Spanish drawings is the first of its kind in London. The culmination of a four year research project, the works are drawn from […]
1 December 2011
Exhibition devoted to Georg Karl Pfahler, the German representative of ‘Hard-Edge Painting’ – a style popularised by the likes of Ellsworth Kelly and Frank Stella Six large paintings make up this small but focused exhibition of the work of artist Georg Karl Pfahler. The works on show date from between 1964 and 1981, a […]
29 November 2011
SNPG £17.6m restoration project breathes new life into prestigious collection ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, there are very many stories we would like to tell you this morning …’ And so the tour through the newly transformed Scottish National Portrait Gallery began – the first look at the ambitious £17.6m restoration project that has sought to […]
25 November 2011
In cutting out the middleman and helping artists sell directly to art buyers, does The Other Art Fair provide a real alternative to the established model? Free from the money, galleries and powerful figures that dominate the art market today, The Other Art Fair is proud of its otherness and determined not to be just […]
25 November 2011
Review of Louise Lawler’s No Drones at Sprüth Magers, her first solo show in the UK for four years Lawler’s photographs capture artworks in compromising positions; from a Koons Rabbit next to the refrigerator (Foreground, 1994) to Jasper Johns’ White Flag in the bedroom (Monogram, 1984). This short but sweet exhibition – her first solo show in the UK […]
25 November 2011
Ancient mummy coupled with latest medical technology produces stunning contemporary art at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford After walking through centuries of ancient Egyptian history at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, the visitor is finally confronted with a strange, disconcerting – and oftentimes difficult to fathom – box containing 111 vertical panes of glass. Closer inspection reveals […]
24 November 2011
We review the show dedicated to the work of two contemporary Swedish artists Cecilia Edefalk and Gunnel Wåhlstrand Edefalk presents us with a series of twelve (very) different painted versions of the same nude statue, all called ‘Double White Venus’. While there is no sense of direction, repeated action, or consistent approach in this […]
23 November 2011
Alex Hartley, the artist responsible for the controversial Nowhere Island Olympic project, proves his salt at Victoria Miro Alex Hartley: The World is Still Big is an innovative collection of original works that proves his credentials for representing the UK in the major Cultural Olympiad project, Nowhere Island. Hartley’s practice (when he’s not sailing lumps […]
22 November 2011
ArtLyst reviews Lee Maelzer’s first solo show at Poppy Sebire The Hypnosis of Error is Lee Maelzer’s first solo exhibition and takes place, quite appropriately, in a hidden converted Victorian church hall, AKA ‘Poppy Sebire’. I say ‘appropriately’, since it is the idea of the ‘hidden’ that fascinates Maelzer, her work bringing to our attention […]
19 November 2011
All Visual Arts presents Alastair Mackie’s Copse, an instantly appealing piece of formal design, no more and no less Alastair Mackie’s new and largest installation to date, Copse, fills the blinding white gallery space with a forest of naked trees, each one balancing delicately upon ornate and spindly table legs carved in at their bases. Instantly […]
18 November 2011
Promising 1982 Young Contemporary emerges from the wilderness Since she first exhibited in the ICA’s 1982 Young Contemporaries show alongside Grayson Perry, Michele Howarth Rashman has been the shrinking violet of contemporary art. Having been kept afloat through the 1990s by the patronage of The Who’s John Entwhistle – ‘my only fan’ –, it was […]
16 November 2011
Paul McCarthy’s energetic new London exhibition at Hauser & Wirth does not disappoint, turning out to be one of 2011’s ‘must-see’ shows Paul McCarthy’s major new exhibition at Hauser & Wirth is a joyous sprawl of pop cultural reference, creaky robotics, and splayed legs. Straddling both the Savile Row and Piccadilly galleries, as well […]
15 November 2011
Ellen Altfest’s White Cube exhibition ‘The Bent Leg’ grants viewers with intimate but uninspiring look at the male body Ellen Altfest: The Bent Leg is the second White Cube exhibition by the New York-based artist, and represents the culmination of a series of works started in 2006. The downstairs show presents us with a near-complete male nude […]
10 November 2011
Leading British artist Paul Noble presents the culmination of 15-year project at Gagosian gallery Paul Noble’s exhibition begins In the Beginning, with the Word, in a series of panels re-envisioning the opening passages of the book of Genesis. But Noble depicts not the creation of our world; rather, a faecal-phallic deity breathes life into a […]