Category: Articles

  • Just-So Stories

    The announcement of a vast, new, Indian monumental and religious complex at Delhi, set on the banks of the river Yamuna, a healthy distance from the catastrophic earthquake zone of northern India can only be welcomed in the Hindu world,…

  • Key Sale Upcoming

    Christie’s Modern Sale: The Anderson Collection On 18 November, Christie’s will hold a major sale of works of art in London from the collection and estate of the late shipping magnate Sir Colin Anderson (d.1980), a shipping director of P&O.…

  • Not Built in a Day

    The continued strife plaguing Italian architects spills over in Rome, where US architect, Richard Meier, has been under attack for an unpopular ‘shrine’ building that now houses on a mega-scale, the Ara Pacis, an historic altar that dates back two…

  • Beck’s Futures 2 far back

    The expectations raised by this year’s Beck’s Futures show are a sad and inappropriate thanks-offering to a corporation that has contributed much over the years to British contemporary art, and the show does nothing to enhance the ICA’s current predicament.…

  • Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads

    Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh 4 June-4 September 2005 Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg 14 October 2005-15 January 2006

  • Nordic Dawn: Modernism’s Awakening in Finland 1890-1920

    Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna 15 June-2 October 2005 Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, the Netherlands 15 October 2005-26 January 2006

  • Festival Connections – 179th RSA Annual Exhibition

    The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh 13 August-25 September 2005

  • A tribute to Eduardo Paolozzi

    Robin Spencer, Paolozzi’s biographer and editor of his ‘Writings and Interviews’,1 has given us permission to record here the tribute that he delivered at the Memorial Reception to Sir Eduardo, which was held close to his donated collection at the…

  • Scandinavian Design: Beyond the Myth

    The Lighthouse, Glasgow 19 June 2005-28 August 2005 The Danish Museum of Art and Design, Copenhagen 16 September 2005-20 November 2005

  • MVRDV KM3: Proposals for Chinese Cities

    Shanghai Gallery of Art 2 July-21 August 2005

  • Cressida Campbell

    Nevill Keating Pictures, London 7-22 July 2005

  • Saving Bellany

    As reported earlier here, the artist John Bellany had a close brush with death earlier this summer. Now, he has shown special gratitude to the doctors, nurses and members of the public who ensured his survival from a debilitating heart…

  • John Bellany at 59

    On l8th June painter John Bellany celebrated his 59th birthday. That Bellany is still alive is little short of miraculous, the result of a remarkable liver transplant at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, in l988. So Bellany is the first living painter…

  • In Bilbao, che serra, serra …

    The new installation by Richard Serra in Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim (yes, inside it) does go to show, at last, that the museum is actually matching the quality of the architecture with modern masterpieces. There could be no greater sculptural/spatial union…

  • Gehry Triumphant

    Above the Basque town of Elciego, Frank Gehry has hit the heavens again. This time, his proposed new hotel for Rioja, the winemakers, is a masterly symphony of movement and mystique. One-third of the budget is funded by the Basque…

  • Sargent Seeing Monet

    Among the superb Monet paintings currently on show at the Royal Academy in London are two superb masterpieces. ‘Meadow with Haystacks’ (painted close to Monet’s home at Giverny) is once again linked appropriately to the documentation provided by John Singer…

  • Ideas from Whitechapel

    Whitechapel’s Library, next door to the superb Gallery, has had to be closed. The plan for this multi-ethnic library has been to create a new ‘Idea Store’ elsewhere, but which would surely lack the special fin-de-siecle stimulus found there by…

  • Finland: Modern Architectures in History – book review

    The awakening of Modernism in the 1880s in Finland, as in other European nations, was first felt through the visual arts and literature, manifested (post-Charles Darwin) as a growth in interest in Naturalism and the perceived effects of an increasingly…

  • Frida Kahlo

    Tate Modern, London 9 June – 9 October 2005

  • Glossing the Czar

    The exhibition on the last Tsar Nicolas and Tsarina Alexandra at the Royal Museum of Scotland draws out but fails to expunge the aura of tragedy that hangs over their reign, terminated by the execution of an entire family. Nicolas…

  • Visit Britain for a visual feast

    Tate Britain showed ‘A Picture of Britain’ through until 4 September. This picturesque visiting of well-trodden scenarios of the English, Scottish and Welsh landscape exploited the device of picture linkage ostensibly in order to promote such resources of national beauty…

  • Modes en Miroir: la France et la Hollande au temps des Lumieres

    Musée Galliera, Paris 28 April – 21 August 2005 After the recent decision of the Musée Galliera to collaborate with other European museums and collectors, ‘Modes en Miroir’ continues the theme of contemporary Europe sharing stories of a mutual past:…

  • Robert Mallet-Stevens

    Centre Pompidou, Paris 27 April–29 August 2005

  • A new building for St Catz

    Walking around Oxford today, it is remarkable how little the centre of the city has changed in the last 50 years. The sweeping curve of The High, punctuated by the single tree in the garden of All Souls College, remains…