Category: Articles

There is a bloodbath in Frankfurt, and it isn’t the result of Al Quaida’s targeting of the European Bank. ‘’Blood: Perspectives on Art, Power, Politics and Pathology’, runs through until 27 January at Schirn Kunsthalle, Romerberg, Frankfurt-am-Main and at mak.frankfurt.…

The great trajectory of the Solomon R Guggenheim Galleries continues apace. This is a great vindication of the concept of the transferable museum brand, and has confounded the sceptics. Bilbao Guggenheim has been a phenomenal success. What are the criteria…

Another trauma with a quiet ending was the dastardly removal of the highly successful Minister for Culture, Media, and Sport. Was it that Smith too readily favoured art over sport, reversing the interest of the majority of voters in this…

It has been inspiring to see how, through this year, one small European nation continues to achieve a cultural impact wholly disproportionate to its small population of less than 5.5 million, one-tenth of that of the United Kingdom. Quite apart…

Francis Fukuyama has been strident, since 11 September, in re-asserting, in the Wall Street Journal, that history is indeed foreclosed, terminally in suspense, on a drip feed, but nonetheless ‘we remain at the end of history’. There was surely a…

There seems little more to be said of this drama. Although Martin Creed is an appropriate winner for 2001, and Madonna in making the award administered the expletive kick-start that she was bidden to perform more skilfully than many truly…

Tate Liverpool opens a challenging exhibition entitled ‘Telling Tales: Narrative Impulses in Recent Art’ which displays perfect timing. The absence of narrative in contemporary art has not been much questioned this year. Perhaps, 2002 will restore this long-present element of…

Tate Britain’s birthday suits: ‘Exposed: The Victorian Nude’

One of the traumas of 2001 was, for UK viewers jealously treasuring the almost uniquely intelligent comment garnered by Mark Lawson in the chair of the weekly half-hour long survivor of ‘The Late Review’ (long lamented), the peripatetic replacement of…

Currently showing in London is a small ‘cabinet’ exhibition open to the public in the Library Print Room, Royal Academy, through 28 January. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein has been a compelling figure in British intellectual life. He died in Cambridge…

The art world has had its own share of drama and trauma during 2001. Of course, looming over all that took place is the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center (see article, September 11: European Thoughts, September 2001). New…

The Getty Museum was deeply shocked to be alerted to the possibility of a number of forged Renaissance drawings in its midst, especially since the purchasing policy has been altruistic, scholarly, and, need one say it, generous. And yet the…

Today, there is a generation of war victims, descendants of 20th century pioneers, now made modern masters, who rightfully seek to reclaim works that had been held during the war, until divested by the families of the artists. Into this…

What can be done about the Dome? Well, it’s actually transportable anywhere outside the country. A rather tasteless idea was put forward after 11 September that it could be ‘given’ to New York. Fortunately for New York this has not…

Information technology has been the greatest boon to the library sector. We no longer miss the curious olfactory ambience that was the preserve of the Victorian or Edwardian library, any more than we do the scuffed and annotated volumes or…

Tate Modern will launch its spring megashow, MatissePicasso, on 11 May 2002. For the first time the show assembles a massive, representative selection of the work of both artists altogether, which will also illustrate their competition with each other ever…

Following Neil MacGregor’s acceptance of the British Museum post, the National Gallery now finds itself, for the first time in 15 years, seeking a new director. Charles Saumarez Smith, innovative Director of the National Portrait Gallery, has already been tipped…

First we had the Guggenheim Las Vegas (which opened last October) and now we will have Thameside Saatchi. The expansion of the global brand has been mastered by Krens of the Guggenheim. Historically, the Guggenheim New York has rivalled MoMA…