Archive

  • Come back, Roger Hilton: a bas, Dumas!

    Come back, Roger Hilton: à bas, Dumas!

  • Paris rising

    The culture of Paris has never lacked dynamism, but has occasionally fallen back. However now the new Cite de la Mode et du Design close by the Gare d’Austerlitz designed by architects Jakob Macfarlane has made as big an impact…

  • The Saint of Museum St: Neil MacGregor

    Neil MacGregor has, in 2008 brought to a climax his immediate series of historical exhibitions at the British Museum. The Babylon exhibition now current there is masterly, highly relevant to contemporary culture and politics, and very much the creation of…

  • A highway to India

    EM Forster could never have anticipated in his lifetime the contemporary regeneration of Indian culture, from literature, to Bollywood, to contemporary arts. At the Serpentine Gallery there is a revelation about the visual arts surge, but unfortunately the poor Serpentine…

  • Falling towers

    Lord Foster has been pipped at the post, by architect, and rival Jean Nouvel in Paris, to build the so-called Signal Tower in La Defense in Paris. Fosters 974 ft tower was beaten by Nouvel’s 990 ft version. Foster’s further…

  • Evicting art and philosophy

    The famous Roerich Museum in Moscow (dedicated to the 19th century life and philosophy of Nicholas Roerich) and opened in 1990 has been snatched, it seems, by the Federal Property Management Agency, unheeded by President Medvedev .It seems the state…

  • EU Babel

    The European Unions much-vaunted project for a massive electronic Bibliotheque, entitled Europeana, is what the Commissions leader Jose Manuel Barroso calls a Renaissance Moment. Can Europe really outdo existing market search engines in the arts field`? Certainly, as reported on…

  • One for Boris to scupper

    Saatchi’s new gallery, a subtle re-use of the old Duke of York’s Barracks bordering the Eastern end of the King’s Road, augurs well for his purpose. But sadly, close by along the Chelsea Bridge Road, then Ranelagh Gardens and Chelsea…

  • Real affordable housing, sixty years on

    Scant homage has been played – by architects and developers – to the so-called affordable housing, of the post-war prefab estates. One of these is poised today to get Grade II Listing. These single storey units were only intended to…

  • Zhukova dashes into videoz

  • Mark Rothko: The Retrospective

    Hamburger Kunsthalle Museum 16 May–14 September 2008

  • Gerhard Richter: Paintings from private collections – book review

    Edinburgh’s National Gallery was indeed fortunate to receive the above exhibition following showings in Baden-Baden and then, Beijing, earlier in 2008. Reviewing the Catalogue is to appreciate a valuable tool to understanding the more salient tendencies of Richter’s work. This…

  • Francis Bacon at Tate Britain

    Francis Bacon (1909-1992) at Tate Britain heralds the artist’s centenary in 2009. It is the first retrospective since 1985, enabling a re-assessment of his work, although the exhibitions in Edinburgh, Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads (2005) and Norwich, Francis Bacon…

  • A Creative Transatlantic Tango Shapes the Modern World: Paris/New York, 1925-1940

    Museum of the City of New York 3 October 2008–22 February 2009

  • The House Of Books Has No Windows

    Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller: The House Of Books Has No Windows 15 October–18 January, Modern Art Oxford Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller like telling stories. The narrative impetus propels their multi-media installations. It engages the…

  • Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

    Haunch of Venison, London 15 October–29 November 2008

  • Gerhard Richter

    The Scottish National Gallery complex on The Mound 8 November 2008-4 January 2009

  • Xiangshan Campus, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China

    Xiangshan Campus, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China

  • Robin Rhode. Who Saw Who and Through the Gate

    Who Saw Who 7 October–7 December 2008, Hayward Gallery, London Through the Gate 26 November 2008–10 January 2009, White Cube, London Robin Rhode is charting new ground as a talented, mixed-race South African artist, who pushes the boundaries of drawing…

  • Aboriginal Women as Ambassadors of Art and Culture

    The story of the Australian Aboriginal batik projects in five distinct desert communities in the 1970s and 1980s reveals a series of ironies, which enable contemporary indigenous art in Australia to be better understood. The works themselves are superb, as…

  • Colony Room closing time?

    A glorious hub for artists, dilettantes and drunks for the past 60 years, the Colony Room in Soho now faces imminent closure. Brawls and protests have inevitably ensued, parties have been planned to pay for legal fees and some members…

  • Cold War Modern

    Victoria & Albert Museum, London 25 September 2008-11 January 2009

  • Mark Rothko: the ‘end of philosophy, the beginning of art’

    26 September 2008-1 February 2009 Tate Modern, London

  • Two seekers of light – Ammi Phillips and Mark Rothko – meet in Manhattan

    American Folk Art Museum, Manhattan 7 October 2008 – 29 March 2009