Category: Articles

  • Said business

    The Said Business School at Oxford University, designed by Jeremy Dixon and Edward Jones, has been built on a central site conveniently close to Oxford’s railway station using a 20 million donation from the Syrian-born businessman Wafic Said. The Said…

  • The Spanish Civil War remembered

    One of the excellent aspects of the Imperial War Museum is the long span of its temporary exhibitions. The Spanish Civil War runs until 28 April 2002. Often, memorable Spanish works from the period are detached from their time in…

  • In memory of tall buildings

    As if this were the perfect time to celebrate high-rise, the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone is, in alliance with the City Corporation of London, to give the best possible support to a new generation of megatowers, grafted, as it…

  • Tate Britain backing-up

    Tate Britain has at last received the necessary lift-off through an architectural redesign which could not be achieved entirely through exhibition diversity alone. Called the Centenary Development and costing 32.3 million, there is less razzmatazz and more contemplation of the…

  • V & A

    Mark Jones was the perfect choice to run the V & A; he had successfully masterminded the new building for the Museum of Scotland before he left, and he appears undaunted by the challenge of the brilliant Libeskind spiral, as…

  • Frank Auerbach

    Royal Academy of Arts, London, through 12 December.

  • 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)…

  • 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)…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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.…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • No trampoline needed for Manhattan now