The Solace of Art: Creativity as resistance
Twenty years ago, the American essayist, Lawrence Weschler, visited The Hague. He travelled there to sit in on the preliminary hearings of the Yugoslav War Crimes tribunal, specifically those related to the trial of Duško Tadić, the Bosnian Serb who was the first man to be tried by an international criminal court of war since… Continue reading
Me me meme: artists’ selfies paint the full spectrum of self-obsession
Detail from Self Portrait (after Warhol) by Yinka Shonibare. Photograph: Courtesy Danjuma Collection/© Yinka Shonibare MBE. DACS 2014
There’s a body on the floor of the gallery, as if he’d been dragged up from an east Kent beach. Good lord, it’s Jeremy Millar. The exposed parts of his body are covered in weird holes. Something’s… Continue reading
French art organisations respond to the Charlie Hebdo attacks
Portrait of Voltaire by Nicolas de Largillière, 1724-25. © RMN (Château de Versailles) / Franck Raux
As heads of state worldwide expressed their solidarity with the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the French government promised to contribute financial aid towards the publication’s future. The culture minister Fleur Pellerin pledged on TV channel France 5 to… Continue reading
Swiss Unveil Art Amassed by Dealer in Nazi Era
Hildebrand Gurlitt. Credit Kunstsammlungen Zwickau, via Associated Press
BERLIN — Fresh mysteries and marvels of the art trove amassed by a Nazi-era art dealer and kept secret for decades unfurled on Thursday when the Swiss museum that inherited the collection revealed all 1,600 or so works to the world for the first time.
The… Continue reading
Public art and the commemoration of World War I
On Monday 4 August, 100 years after the outbreak of World War I, a pillar of light shone from a triangle of grass beside the Houses of Parliament. Many commentators declared Ryoji Ikeda’s Artangel-produced spectra, a thing of beauty. According to its creator, when experienced from close enough to hear the… Continue reading
Barbarians at the Art Auction Gates? Not to Worry
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Warrior” had a rapid turnover at auctions. Credit Leon Neal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In one striking example, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Warrior” sold three times at auction between 2005 and 2012, the painting’s price soaring during those seven years by 450 percent, to nearly $9 million.
In another, at Christie’s this May, an… Continue reading
Malevich review – an intensely moving retrospective
‘Total euphoria’: Malevich's Suprematist Painting (with Black Trapezium and Red Square), 1915. Photograph: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Kazimir Malevich painted his revolutionary Red Square one hundred years ago. It still looks staggeringly new at Tate Modern. Even after a century of abstract art nothing seems quite so radical as this dazzlingly simple form –… Continue reading
Facing the Blank Canvas: Artists’ Tips for Getting Started
In Tom Burckhardt’s installation FULL STOP (2004–5), a large, empty canvas dominates a cluttered studio filled with books, paint tubes and brushes, sketches on the walls, and other paraphernalia of an artist’s working life. It’s a tour de force made entirely of cardboard; the whole thing has been shipped to such places as the… Continue reading
Life and work of Francis Bacon to be celebrated in new institute in Monaco
Detail from Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944 Photograph: Tate
A unique scholarly institute devoted to Francis Bacon is to open in Monaco, where the painter drew inspiration from the light and landscape, as well as the principality’s gambling dens and bars.
The idea of the… Continue reading
