Palladio the modern architect

2008 is the year of Andrea Palladio (above), born 500 years ago. The anniversary is being celebrated with a big exhibition in his home town, Vicenza, which opens at Palazzo Barbaran da Porto on 20 September (until 6 January) and then travels to the Royal Academy in London (31 January-31 April). There are plenty of good arguments for saying that Palladio – thanks to his 1570 book Quattro Libri dell’Architettura rather than his actual buildings – is the most influential architect of all time. Even Le Corbusier cannot quite rival him for the way that his understanding of the classical...

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For the love of God!

Now that summer is officially over and the Olympics hooplah seems like the dim and distant past, we can return to dwelling on religious imagery in contemporary art . Or at least that’s what appears to be currently happening in Essex, Newcastle, Bolzano and Rome.

Back in January, an offended citizen requested a police investigation into the display of Terence Koh’s statuette of Christ with an erection at the Baltic Centre, Gateshead. After receiving little satisfaction, Emily Mapfuwa from Brentwood, Essex, is bringing a private case against the gallery with the financial help of the Christian Legal Centre.

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Hirst and the art market

Two articles in yesterday’s press neatly demonstrated for me the two polar forces that characterise the art world. The first was a piece in The Telegraph by Richard Dorment highlighting the current show at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles about the Society of Dilettanti which contrasted with discussion in The Independent of Damien Hirst’s much debated September Sotheby’s auction in which the artist is staging the first single-artist sale consigned by the artist himself.

Hirst’s antics have got the art world and media a flutter. By dispensing with the dealers and art galleries that represent him (Jay Joplin at...

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Out of Africa, Australia and Herefordshire

While Australia has recently mounted a lavish retrospective of Sidney Nolan at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales, an altogether more intimate chance to view a selection of Nolan’s works was available in Herefordshire from 21-31 August, courtesy of the Sidney Nolan Trust.

The exhibition, entitled ‘Sidney Nolan: Africa and Australia’, was held in a converted barn situated on the private estate that was the artist’s home in the later years of his life. The paintings on show were the result of Nolan’s visit to Africa in the summer of 1962, where he spent several weeks in Kenya...

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Titians and tax

In February 2007 Apollo published a list of the 25 most important works in private hands in the UK, works that deserved to be acquired for the nation if at all possible. Yesterday’s announcement that the Duke of Sutherland has offered to sell to the nation two of those works, Titian’s Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto, has been received with due acknowledgment that the offer price, of £50m per picture, is notably generous. Moreover, the Duke has offered the National Galleries in London and Edinburgh the opportunity to pay for the two paintings in instalments over six years....

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