Archive

  • William Roberts: England at Play

    Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK 20 January-18 March 2007

  • Steven Holl: America’s Best Architect

    The USA has lately found and recognised the real successor to Frank Gehry in a new generation. This is New York-based artist Steven Holl. It has been some while in coming, but with the opening in June 2007 of the…

  • The Art of the Mise-en-Sc

    Cinémathèque Française, Paris 4 April-30 July 2007

  • Steven Campbell

    The death of the painter Steven Campbell on 15 August 2007 sent shock waves through the London and New York art worlds as well as his native Glasgow. His early recognition on a Fulbright Scholarship at the Pratt Institute New…

  • Mediators and Messengers: Contemporary Art in the Landscape

    The entire agenda for painting about landscape has shifted in the 21st century. Concepts and readings of the land have a weighty and protracted precedence but in the 1970s, far-reaching revisions were explored by artists. These have generated a powerful…

  • Douglas Gordon: Superhumanatural

    National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 2 November 2006-14 January 2007 The film and video artist Douglas Gordon had his first one-man exhibition in Britain at the Lisson Gallery in 1994, sponsored by its perceptive director Nicholas Logsdail, to which he…

  • Tracey\’s Star

    2007 will be Tracey Emin’s year. She will represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in June, competing with other nations for the Golden Lion trophy (sounds made for Tracey) and making the most of the Palladian British Pavilion, up whose…

  • Rogers on a roll, no butter

    The wine is flowing at the River Café. Since it appears that notwithstanding assurances by partner architect Marco Goldschmied (anxious to take his stake out and move off with the proceeds), the practice-owned café may not be so easy to…

  • Redundant Commonwealth Centre with Potential

    The Commonwealth Arts Centre in South Kensington is still under threat of early demolition. The official reason given is that it leaks. The fact is that it doesn’t do so. Three years ago, that was all put right by architect,…

  • Battersea Power Station Update: an Old Man River Saga

    New Chinese art will fill and fill the giant space. Already, 22 Chinese artists are free-ranging within the derelict site. Because of the considerable distances across the site, bicycles are made available to visitors (those familiar with the Beijing traffic…

  • Australian National Gallery Makeover

  • Art market trends

    The Miami Art Fair has surely reached its zenith now that Karen Wright, the formidable Editor of Modern Painters, has given her approval, having previously disavowed its lurid charms

  • Brice Marden: A Retrospective of Paintings and Drawings

    Museum of Modern Art, New York 29 October 2006-15 January 2007 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 23 February-13 May 2007 The work of American painter Brice Marden is currently showing in a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern…

  • Architecture: Zaha Did It

    The development of architecture specifically for cancer outpatient healthcare has been pioneered in the UK by a group of independent operatives known as the ‘Maggie’s Centres’

  • Tales of two cities: Berlin, Dresden

    These are stirring times for architecture ‘watchers’ in Germany’s two famous cities; Berlin, the capital, and Dresden, culture capital of the south-east. The re-opening of the neo-Baroque and now restored Bode Museum in Berlin, sitting on its island and commanding…

  • Simply Artful, Simply Functional, Simply Droog

    Museum of Arts and Design, New York Simply Droog: 10+3 years of Creating Innovation and Discussion 21 September 2006-14 January 2007

  • Beijing’s 798 Art District

    A decade ago, setting up radical art studios in the workshops of a largely abandoned military electronics complex on the fringe of Beijing was considered to be intriguing and provocative. Today, Factory 798 is a warren of contemporary art galleries,…

  • David Hockney Portraits

    National Portrait Gallery, London 12 October 2006-21 January 2007 ‘What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing: you wouldn’t be an artist unless you wanted to…

  • Silence and Connection

    A Deaf Artist in Early America: The Worlds of John Brewster Jr American Folk Art Museum, New York 4 October 2006-7 January 2007 The experience of being deaf was integral to the poignant portraits painted by John Brewster Jr. In…

  • Magisterial Vico

    The passing of the Italian industrialist Vico Magistretti in mid-September at the age of 85 shocked his many peers, colleagues, friends and former students. Magistretti, proud to designate himself as a designer rather than an architect, was actually the son…

  • Dark humour with Mona’s likeness

    Poor Sir Joshua Reynolds (or is it lucky Josh?). A selective collector, the painter acquired a work from the Duke of Leeds around 1790, it is thought in a swap for a Reynolds self-portrait. The painting Reynolds acquired seems to…

  • Koestler\’s special legacy

    The Koestler Trust, founded by the late Arthur Koestler, provided great sanctuary for numerous prisoners over a period of 45 years, giving hope through encouraging the creative force of art. Many artists received a call, in his time, from the…

  • A gate too far?

    The National Gallery has laid its plans well for 2007. In February, it will open a new blockbuster entitled simply ‘Renoir’s Landscapes 1865-1883’. The exhibition follows 20 years of Renoir’s output from about 1865 when he completed a canvas entitled…

  • Grand duchy adopts pole position

    Who knows which city is to be the European Capital of Culture in 2007? Deadly silence. Of course, someone prompts – it’s Luxembourg. Luxembourg is the greatest beneficiary of the accident of being at the centre of cultural crosscurrents ever…