Category: Articles

  • Passing in the Night

    Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, erstwhile architects of the National Gallery, London, (‘More Post Office than Post Modern’, according to one critic) spoke at the Royal Institute of British Architects on 15 March 2004. They rely upon being controversial,…

  • Prospecting Louise

    Louse MacBain is moving into pole position in the international world of art media. The purchase of Art + Auction last year by MacBain has already much improved the visual presentation of the journal, a notable form manual for the…

  • Settled in London

    The fact that David Hockney is spending more and more time in Britain, either in Yorkshire or in London, suggests that he is here to stay, as much as one might be prepared to commit to anywhere nowadays. This could…

  • Snow Jobs

    Not many art enthusiasts will have been able to visit the exhibition ‘The Snow Show’, on at Kemi and Rovaniemi in Northern Finland, until 31 March 2004. Kemi is on the Northern edge of the Gulf of Bothnia, an hour…

  • Tax Windfall

    The Russian magnate Vladimir Logvinenko has the ambition to bring into St Petersburg again and to other Russian Museums, outstanding paintings. For a long time, he could not bring this to fruition. But the removal of Russia’s 30% import tax…

  • The Art of Philip Guston: 1913-1980

    Philip Guston is one of America’s most important 20th century artists. His work occupies a unique place which the retrospective exhibition now showing at the Royal Academy in London reveals. If one views a painting such as ‘Untitled’ (Sandwich, 1980),…

  • Bill Viola: The Passions

    The National Gallery, London 22 October 2003—4 January 2004

  • Karel Nel: Status of Dust

    Art First Contemporary Art, 9 Cork Street, London, W1 9 November 2003-22 January 2004

  • Spider in the Field – Snow-Land Agrarian Culture Center, Matsudai by MVRDV

    MVRDV is an office for urbanism and architecture based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, founded by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries in 1991 after they won the first prize in the Berlin Europan Competition. They are well…

  • A Crystalline, Kaleidoscopic Universe – Prada Aoyama, Tokyo by Herzog & de Meuron

    In 1999 Prada launched the “Epicentre Store” programme to examine different ways of reinventing the Prada retail experience by commissioning avant-garde architects like Rem Koolhaas and SANNA to design their new shops. The latest addition to the programme was Prada…

  • Interview with David Elliott, Director of Mori Art Museum, Tokyo

    Since it opened in October 2003, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo has attracted 750,000 visitors for its inaugural exhibition ‘Happiness: a survival guide for art and life’. This figure is surprising considering that the Mori Museum does not have…

  • Vital Configurations: The paintings of Susan Rothenberg

    Waddington Galleries, London 29 October – 22 November 2003

  • Aldeburgh appalled

    Maggi Hambling has suffered a setback on Aldeburgh beach. The Scallop, which since November 2003 has graced, or – as the local Council would say – contaminated Aldeburgh’s shingly foreshore, has not run foul of any EU Health and Safety…

  • BAGS OF FUN, LOADS OF RUBBISH

    Bags of fun, loads of rubbish

  • BRANCUSI \’S BIRD

  • LIBESKIND IN HOLLOWAY

    Daniel Libeskind’s first London building (there is already the War Museum in Salford) has slipped quietly into the North London skyline, less controversially and less dramatically than his recently unveiled proposals for Ground Zero. In New York, he will bring…

  • REM KOOLHAAS NEARER HOME

    A major retrospective of architect Rem’s work opens on 27 March 2004 at the Kunsthal, Rotterdam. After a ‘wow’ at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Koolhaas’ buildings revel in the overwhelming complexity of certain sites. The ‘Berlin Block’ came in for…

  • Ashley Havinden: Advertising and the Artist

    Dean Gallery, Edinburgh 15 October 2003 – 18 January 2004

  • Worldly Wisdom: The Enlightenment Gallery

    British Museum, London. Opened 12 December 2003

  • Von Hagens Caught Out, Wriggling

    The news that German state prosecutors are now reviewing the notorious anatomist “artist’s” work comes amid information that Von Hagens may have included the corpses of executed prisoners. Certainly a moneyspinner, his exhibit attracted a total of 850,000 visitors during…

  • Waldemar Meets Gerhard

    Gerhard Richter’s recent New York MOMA retrospective was profoundly moving, yet he remains an artist of whom British Gallery directors have fought shy for many years

  • TIDINGS OF JOY: TURNER PRIZE 2003

    TIDINGS OF JOY: TURNER PRIZE 2003 The 2003 Turner Prize was awarded at Tate Britain on Sunday evening, 7 December. The £20,000 ($34,000) award was picked up by Grayson Perry, who describes himself as a ‘transvestite potter from Essex’. This…

  • Helen Frankenthaler: Paintings on Paper (1949-2002)

    Until the 1970s and 1980s, drawings (and indeed all works on paper) were considered to be of less importance than the larger works on canvas or board that evolved from them. Traditionally, works on paper were more personal or diaristic,…

  • Eric Ravilious

    Imperial War Museum, London 23 October 2003 – 25 January 2004