Author: jaywp

Picasso’s designs for Diaghilev’s Les Ballets Russes

The Edinburgh Festival is not always as strong in the visual arts as it is in the range of excellent performances in ballet, music and theatre. However, it was an inspiring and appropriate venue for an exhibition of one of…
Daniel Libeskind: Felix Nussbaum Museum in Osnabrück

Felix Nussbaum Museum, Osnabrück, Germany Architect: Daniel Libeskind
Does Viennese cafe society still exist?

Does Viennese cafe society still exist?
Max Beckmann book reviews

Edited by Sean Rainbird, London: Tate Publishing, 2003.
Marc Chagall: Ceramic Masterpieces

Edited by Roland Doschka, Munich, Berlin, London, New York: Prestel Publishing, September 2003. Marc Chagall (1887-1985) was a storyteller with a magical dimension. His popularity was in large part due to the use of Biblical and Hebrew imagery, which imbued…
Book review: Where’s My Space Age? The Rise and Fall of Futuristic Design

Sean Topham. Munich, Berlin, London, New York: Prestel Publishing, 2003.
Ando’s progress

A recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1995 and the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal 2002, Tadao Ando’s works have been lauded by the architectural world. Yet he himself is entirely self-taught, with no architectural…
Essential Art Deco

Ghislaine Wood. London: V&A Publications, 2003.
Adventures in Art: Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo: The Artist in the Blue House(published 2003) is the most recent title in Prestel’s list of excellent art books for children. Creatively conceived, well written and well designed, these are the most attractive books of their type on…
The Museum of the Mind: Art and Memory in World Cultures

The British Museum, London, 17 April-7 September 2003
50th Venice Biennale

The 100th anniversary this year of the Venice Biennale will probably not be its last. But then it’s a good opportunity to call it a century, with the 5oth Biennale creaking, bleeping and glitzing along
Philosopher and colleague of Ludwig Wittgenstein dies: GH von Wright (d. 16 June 2003)

Philosopher and colleague of Ludwig Wittgenstein dies: GH von Wright (d. 16 June 2003)
Good news from the trenches

Simon Callery’s new exhibition at Dover Castle raises the question of ‘what is archaeology?’ It offers sideways on, a long sectional slice of chalk rock, a ‘dip’ within which shards may be found. Such installation works as Callery’s (which they…
Absolutely vital for survival; or how vodka in Venice is \’absolutely\’ best paired with tonic

Absolutely vital for survival; or how vodka in Venice is ‘absolutely’ best paired with tonic
Stem cells in the suburbs

In the 2003 Biennale Australian pavilion, Patricia Piccinini (‘We are family’) entered into the flesh and spirit of the event by seeking to plumb ‘normality’; she goes on the consider ‘What is family?’ A half-understood image of the human genome…
Venice nul points

One of the stranger but understandable results of the Iraq War has been the failure of Chris Ofili – the favourite in the stakes – to win the Golden Lion at Venice. No, it was not the absence of a…
To the low countries

In the Dutch pavilion, ‘We are the world’ is the title of a ‘confrontational juxtaposition of installations by five artists of different cultural origins, but all living and working in the Netherlands’. Thus, Mexican Carlos Amorales shows a small shoe…
Foster\’s Trafalgar

In July, popular London Mayor Ken Livingston will unveil the most significant revision of Trafalgar Square since the Lutyens fountains were installed in 1939. Our Ken had the right idea, since the new setting for the National Gallery transforms Wilkins…
Blowing open the turbine hall (soon): foretaste from Eliasson

In the Danish national pavilion, Olafur Eliasson (‘The Blind Pavilion’) provides a welcome series of optical variations that are polarised in orange light using kaleidoscopes and a multi-faceted array internally. If this offers a foretaste of the artist’s repertoire in…
Booty abounds

The combination of looted heritage from Afghanistan with that from Baghdad has suddenly created a buyer’s market, with an evident surplus of works. There has been no useful analysis as yet about the trade routes for this spread of relics,…
Absolutely vital for survival | How vodka in Venice is ‘absolutely’ best paired with tonic

Absolutely vital for survival; or how vodka in Venice is ‘absolutely’ best paired with tonic
Mario Testino: Portraits

Dean Gallery, Edinburgh, 16 April-15 June 2003.
Designer of the Year

Design Museum, London, 1 March—29 June 2003.
John Piper in the 1930s – Abstraction on the Beach

John Piper in the 1930s – Abstraction on the Beach