Emergency! Emergency! I made it to this show unforgivably late in the run, and at the time of writing it only has a week remaining. If you’re in or near London and can find the time, I would recommend it purely for the heady, intense experience it offers. Failing that, I hope you find the…
Tag: exhibitions in London
Motion captures: William Kentridge at the Royal Academy of Arts, London
As I write, there is just under a fortnight left – including two weekends – to see the Royal Academy’s retrospective of South African artist William Kentridge. I urge you to go if you can. Kentridge also directs and stages opera, and it’s thanks to English National Opera (‘ENO’) that I first encountered his work….
Organised K-os: ‘Hallyu! – The Korean Wave’, V&A, London
‘Hallyu’ – the eye-catching title of this big-ticket exhibition at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum (‘V&A’) – translates as ‘Korean wave’, the phrase used to describe Korean culture’s steady rise to prominence over the last 25 years or so. Informed by a K-pop aesthetic, it’s a heady, day-glo, assault-on-the-senses experience. Throw yourself into it and…
Lightbulb moments: Cornelia Parker at Tate Britain
The exploding shed is probably the image familiar to most. But the joy of seeing so much of Cornelia Parker’s work all in one place shows just how consistently she has sought to reach the heart of the (subject) matter by systematically taking it apart or changing its form – violently or otherwise. * The…
Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2022
The exhibition shows the work from two publications and two exhibitions of four nominees: Deana Lawson, Anastasia Samoylova, Jo Ractliffe and Gilles Peress. All four photographers challenge, in different ways, preconceived histories by using their own photographic evidence to posit alternative viewpoints.
Surrealism Beyond Borders at Tate Modern
The point of this exhibition, as the title suggests, is to look beyond metropolitan France at the wider diaspora of the movement launched by André Breton’s Manifeste du surréalisme in 1924. Perhaps the first truly international art movement, Surrealism seems to have cropped up almost everywhere over the next half century, in locations as varied as Egypt, Syria, Nigeria,…
Poussin and the Dance at the National Gallery, London
Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) A thought-provoking exhibition which offers a different view of Poussin’s early work in Rome and displays his paintings in a sympathetic and joyous environment. Guest review by Sarah Mulvey Detail from a Bacchanalian Revel Before a Term, ca.1632-33, London, National Gallery I am spellbound before Poussin’s painting of the Adoration of the Golden Calf in the…
Summer Exhibition 2021 at the Royal Academy of Arts
Summer Exhibitions at the RA are often organised around a single unifying idea – ‘From Life’, say, or ‘Man Made’ – although most years you wonder why they bother, for all the difference it makes to the range (or quality) of submissions. The theme this year, though, ‘Reclaiming Magic’, is apt, because for once the…
The Making of Rodin at the Tate Modern
Guest review by Sarah Mulvey Featured: Mask of Camille Claudel with Hand of Pierre de Wissant, after 1900, plaster assemblage Detail from the Monument to the Burghers of Calais,1889, plaster Rodin’s work evokes very different responses; his humanity is recognised through the fragility and compassion of his works, or by his tolerance of imperfection, but…
Worth waiting for: Dubuffet at the Barbican
Freed at last from the Covid lockdown vault, this quirky show may be just the ticket if you’re looking to re-engage with actual, red-in-tooth-and-claw art. He may not be for all tastes, but there’s no denying that the work of Jean Dubuffet (1901-85) still packs quite a punch. Dubuffet it was who famously championed, and…