1:13pm
Marlborough Fine Art is currently hosting Paula Rego: Oratorio, the artist’s first solo exhibition in London since 2006. The centrepiece is the exhibition’s namesake, a mixed-media triptych (see above) that Rego created for her exhibition with Tracey Emin and Matt Collishaw at the Foundling Museum, London, earlier this year. Larger in scale and with more physical detail than her controversial Abortion series of 1999 – which lead to Portugal’s referendum on the legality of abortion – the works aggressively confront issues of female genital mutilation, or ‘circumcision’. Accompanied by several preparatory drawings, large conté works on paper and 19 etchings...
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2:32pm
Sargent and the Sea presents Sargent the marine painter throughout chronologically ordered rooms of the Sackler wing in the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Beginning with works influenced by his family holidays to the Brittany and Normandy coasts, the exhibition takes us through a biographical tour of Sargent’s relationship with the Sea, including his adult trips to Capri, return to Venice and his late-life studies of various wharfs.
For the main part, the exhibition demonstrates Sargent as a master of white and light, focusing on the sea and sky, with the occasional formal or collective portrait, but always using...
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12:19pm
Harrier and Jaguar are two recently decommissioned fighter planes that sit in the Duveen Galleries of Tate Britain, supported by Sotheby’s and devised by previous Turner Prize nominee Fiona Banner. One jet lies belly-up and the other suspended nose-down, demonstrating both their vulnerability and killer instincts, reminding us simultaneously of the birds of prey (and captivity) they imitate. However, the monumental size of the planes – this is Banner’s largest work to date – and the fact that they sit in one of the most prestigious museums of the UK, means you feel more like you’re inspecting their prehistoric ancestors,...
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5:47pm
As the term draws to an end, aspiring art students from far and wide poor into the ‘real world’ with a false sense of security provided by the free white walls, in-house ‘crits’ and ready-made network of the institution. The idea that they might have to apply for exhibitions, beg people to look at their work and market their own shows in future seemed a distant if even conscious concern of those I met last Tuesday night at the Royal College of Art Painting 2010 degree show. This cocky attitude, however, generated a sense of liberation and bravery that meant...
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11:46am
Steve McQueen has led a seven-year campaign commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to commemorate the British servicemen and women killed during the war in Iraq with official postage stamps bearing their portraits. Having been on tour at Manchester International Festival, the Imperial War Museum and the Barbican, Queen And Country is currently on view in room 37 of the National Portrait Gallery, where it remains until 18 July. The UK Royal Mail has yet to give the go-ahead to the project. McQueen’s frustration with his inability to gain proper film footage during his 6 days spent with British...
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A recent exhibition in Nottingham showcases contemporary artists' exploration of the Communist-era space race.
Cast aside by Modernists for much of the 20th century, Classicism
has a comeback of sorts, with an excellent new book reappraising
architecture partnerships and a recent exhibition at one of the very
institutions that so derided the style.
