Category: Articles

  • Ragnar Kjartansson

    The Icelandic artist’s first UK survey exhibition serves up a palimpsest of delights that gives contemporary performance art a good name

  • Stuart Davis: In Full Swing

    Showcasing his work from 1921 to his death in 1964, this exhibition allows the visitor to fully appreciate the artist’s interest in going back through his older sketches and paintings to find inspiration

  • Geoffrey Rigden 1943-2016

    Much here is from his house or studio, with a number of paintings stretched up for the first time since the artist died in January. Mystical and ritualistic, yet irreverent, these are a taster of Rigden’s work

  • David Hockney RA: 82 Portraits and 1 Still Life

    The brightly coloured faces lining the walls of this exhibition show a human fascination with people. Hockney is the lens through which these images have been captured, the characters are the story of his life

  • Painters’ Paintings: from Freud to Van Dyck

    The National Gallery sheds light on the personalities of some of the biggest names in painting, not through their work, but through the art that they collected

  • The beautiful book: art publishing today

    Art books have a special appeal: they are beautiful, collectable objects that are a pleasure to hold and be surrounded by. But the world of art publishing has changed beyond recognition in the past 20 years

  • Moholy-Nagy: Future Present

    A major retrospective showcases the work of multimedia Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy, who pioneered the use of technology as a creative medium

  • Susie Hamilton: In Atoms

    Concerned with the human condition and the solitary existence of individuals, Hamilton’s paintings condense figures into a couple of suggestive brush strokes, stranded in darkness or light. This retrospective offers an overview of two decades of her work

  • Jeff Koons: Now

    For the second exhibition at his gallery in Vauxhall, Damien Hirst presents more than 30 works by Koons, some of which have never before been shown in the UK

  • Li Jin: Being

    Alongside some of his older works, this exhibition focuses on his new, mostly monochrome paintings, executed in a range of black ink, whose disquieting and confrontational images shift fluidly between the abstract and the figurative

  • Wolfgang Tillmans

    What is lost is lost forever, says Tillmans in this politically charged exhibition, which includes posters imploring British voters to stay in Europe. With the show straddling the date of the UK’s referendum on 23 June, it will be interesting…

  • Bhupen Khakhar: You Can’t Please All

    Whether depicting the pathos of everyday tradesmen, the union of same-sex lovers, or the embattled duality of a body riddled with cancer, the Indian artist’s wry humour combines with his vibrant palette to create compelling narrative paintings that speak to…

  • Ella Kruglyanskaya

    Colourful, cartoonesque depictions of curvaceous, sassy women people the Latvian artist’s paintings but, despite the humour, the message is clear

  • Guillermo Kuitca

    In this bold collection of paintings, the Argentinian artist demonstrates his “cubistoid” style, creating abstract worlds informed by geometric rigour, into which he intersperses more figurative details

  • Francis Bacon: Invisible Rooms

    The largest exhibition of Bacon’s paintings ever held in the north of England, it takes as its curatorial framework the spaces the artist painted around his famously brutalised figures – outlines of cubes, rings, platforms and provisional rooms

  • Cuba Libre, Con Permiso

    Artists are the plutocrats in Cuba and, with trade embargos with the US likely to be lifted soon, storied collectors and celebrities are already scouting around for their works.

  • Maria Lassnig

    Concerned with the fundamental problem of the location of the body, both on canvas and in the world, the Austrian artist’s self-portraits span genre and interrogate the notion of self-representation and the limitations of painting

  • Tess Jaray: Dark & Light

    In this exhibition, which comprises three triptychs and two small standalone pieces, Jaray’s interest in the definitions of painting, printing and the boundaries between different media is clear

  • Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds

    Ongoing excavations of two rediscovered cities have shone light on a rich era in Egyptian history, and form the backbone of a fascinating exhibition

  • György Kovásznai: A Cold War Artist. Animation. Painting. Freedom

    The first UK retrospective of the work of the Hungarian artist, film-maker and animator displayed his extensive and eclectic range

  • Fox Talbot: Dawn of the Photograph

    This exhibition tells the story of the birth of photography, exploring the vision of the Victorian inventor William Henry Fox Talbot, alongside those of his contemporaries in France, such as painter and set designer Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre

  • Robert Irwin: All the Rules Will Change

    This exhibition looks at work the artist produced from 1958 to 1970, a time when he reconsidered the premise of art and art-making

  • Ettore Spalletti: Every dawn, is first / Ogni alba, è la prima

    His voice is singular, his pieces united in simplicity: painted columnar forms that point to classical structures, and monochromatic paintings that favour traditional Italian painting

  • Ryan Sullivan: ~ / –

    For his second exhibition at Sadie Coles, the young American artist eschews canvas and paper, drawing attention instead to the material properties of paint, and producing a dazzling feast of vibrant colour and captured movement