Author: jaywp

  • British Museum secures treasure

    The government’s decision to appoint Neil MacGregor as Director of the British Museum

  • Ron Kitaj returns

    Sadly this is not Kitaj’s personal re-entry into London as a working base, since he is now based in California. The collective guilt of the London art world has not yet made amends for the incredibly misplaced critical onslaught that…

  • Rembrandt’s women reach London

    This summer’s Edinburgh exhibition (National Galleries of Scotland) has reached the Royal Academy. Critics feel that this is a less successful hang, however. Then there is the conjunction with Auerbach’s exhibition, possibly too sharply disjunctive a combination of ages and…

  • New York, 25 October 2001

    There is still a queue on Saturdays outside the Museum of Modern Art, where Giacometti is showing superbly. But things are different from before in Chelsea. It’s all in the mind’s eye. Gagosian Gallery is showing ‘Torqued Spirals, Toruses and…

  • Lush countess banned from tube for bare bosom

    Well, in a manner of speaking. Viacom Outdoor vets all advertising for London Underground. It was announced that an uncovered breast and nipple would not be accepted for the National Portrait Gallery’s poster advertising the ‘Painted Ladies’ exhibition, (even if…

  • John Berger returns

    John Berger has made a very welcome return to print in London this autumn, and his presence is well felt. In Modern Painters (Autumn Issue) Berger interviews Maggi Hambling about her drawings, bereavement, nakedness and likeness. He has also written…

  • Critical eye

    A very recent work by artist Damien Hirst has been all too rapidly binned by self-made critic and cleaner Emmanuel Asare. The Eyestorm Gallery, Maddox Street, London W1 (off Regent Street) had set ready their window with Hirst’s installation (untitled)…

  • Caro’s challenges

    Sir Anthony Caro does have independence of mind: he has stoically resisted the blandishments of the Royal Academy, an accolade that most of his distinguished contemporaries have felt unable to resist. Caro’s exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (opened 26 September)…

  • Frank Auerbach

    Royal Academy of Arts, London, through 12 December.

  • The Print in Italy 1550-1620

    ‘The Print in Italy 1550–1620’ at the British Museum (27 September 2001–6 January 2002) is an exceptional exhibition of over 150 works from the museum’s own collection as well as a number of important loans. It is the first exhibition…

  • The Las Vegas Guggenheim Museum

    Rem Koolhaas, architect and author of Delirious New York, an important architectural tract of the mid-1970s, then made a telling New York skyscraper image entitled ‘Dream of Liberty’ with Madelon Vriesendorp. September 11 will have brought to mind this picture…

  • The Royal Institute of British Architects’ Stirling Prize 2001

    This year’s award ceremony in the Great Court of the British Museum (itself not a contender) was memorable in that the favourite didn’t win. Last year considerable added interest to the learned deliberations of the judges was given by Tracey…

  • Monuments for destruction

    Image and Idol: Medieval Sculpture Tate Britain, to 3 March 2002

  • Anthony d’Offay

    Anthony d’Offay’s recent and sudden announcement of closure seems shocking, if characteristically mysterious, after 36 years of meteoric rise. With an annual turnover of around $35 million the doors will close before Christmas to the triad of exhibition spaces which…

  • No trampoline needed for Manhattan now

  • Student Prince

    The decision of Prince William to pursue Art History roused Evening Standard (London) art critic Brian Sewell to severely criticise the appropriateness of his choice of study. But as a foundation year curriculum it is broadly based: architectural history is…

  • South Bank, underneath the arches

    … we while the time away. Well, it has taken several months in fact to appoint an architect in line with architect Rick Mather’s excellent Master Plan on London’s South Bank. That was two years ago. Then an architectural competition…

  • Risen Christ — spent force?

    Michelangelo’s drawing ‘Study for the risen Christ’, has been suspended from export following arts minister Baroness Blackstone’s order, for a period until just before Christmas. Scotland’s National Galleries (Director-General Timothy Clifford) are believed to be the force behind this move.…

  • Paula Rego in Kendal

    One of the best events of the summer, out of London (through 7 October) has been the exhibition, at the Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal, in the Lake District, of works completed in the last three years by the Portugese painter…

  • Mystery burger unearthed

    In London, the Victoria and Albert Museum, in a recent delving, have just found a previously unidentified Hans Holbein miniature, thought to be of a goldsmith by the name of Hans. He was a close friend of Holbein, and set…

  • You beaut country

    In his foreword to the exhibition, Julian Agnew extolls the virtues of Australian culture:

  • Hieronymus Bosch

    Rotterdam, Musem Boijmans van Beuningen, through 11 November 2001.

  • Comment on September 11

    Some happenings are so extraordinary that they outweigh, at least for the present, their ramifications. No apocalyptic event before September was enacted in full view of almost the whole world. Billions of people watched on television as one of the…

  • Frank Auerbach: Paintings and Drawings 1954-2001

    The paintings on show at the RA have an effect that it would have been impossible to anticipate; the grand space of the galleries and the juxtaposition of the paintings achieve resonance which would have been impossible in smaller spaces.…