5:07pm
As a former geologist who had a brief flirtation with film, Danish artist Per Kirkeby manages to be avant-garde without overly shocking the world. Energy, scientific curiosity and childlike enthusiasm are manifested through wide-sweeping brushstrokes that struggle to be confined to the canvas borders.
Consisting of 10 rooms, the exhibition's initial rooms are anti-climactic after the elaborate description at the entrance. However, the works are comprehensive, ranging from collages to watercolour sketches, bronze sculptures to large-scale oil paintings.
Kirkeby clearly had a diverse background - geology, Experimental Art School, theatre and film, critical writings, exotic travels - which influenced...
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5:49pm
1. Jeffrey du Vallier d’Aragon Aranita, founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art China in Hong Kong, left the country shortly after the new museum opened last autumn, leaving behind massive debts. Art experts at the time of the museum’s opening were sceptical that Mr. Aranita could obtain funding for even one museum, but MoCA China was opened in October 2008, only to be closed in January 2009. On the pretext of requiring heart surgery and other medical treatment, Mr. Aranita fled to Hawaii, leaving debts of more than HK$2m (£154,196) that he has refused to settle. He has cut...
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10:54am
Still lifes, expansive landscapes, the Crucifixion, portraits and nudes are common subjects to find in the great gilt frames of any major museum. But even such loved subjects can become somehow overfamiliar – a complaint impossible to level against the work of the renowned colourist Craigie Aitchison. His paintings are simplified, frank and immensely refreshing. Currently on show at the Timothy Taylor Gallery (until 28 August) – the artist’s third show with the gallery – are 27 of Aitchison’s works, including several new pieces.
The gallery’s presentation of Aitchison’s work complements his clean, colourful and quiet style. At the...
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12:44pm
Just in case you’ve been quarantined with swine flu or distracted by something trivial like the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, I am here to tell you that Antony Gormley’s long-awaited contribution to the empty Fourth Plinth has finally arrived in London’s Trafalgar Square. With One & Other, Britain’s Greatest Living Sculptor has invited the Great British People to occupy a space ‘normally reserved for statues of Kings and Generals’, becoming ‘an image of themselves, and a representation of the whole of humanity’.
Every hour for 100 days without a break, a different person is making the pedestal their own....
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4:04pm
1) It emerged this week that three libraries housed at the Courtauld Insititute – the Witt, the Conway and the Photographic Survey – are under threat after the staff who run them were served redundancy notices. The Witt contains around 2 million photographs of work by 70,000 artists from 1200 onwards. The Photographic Survey, begun under the helm of Anthony Blunt, contains a record of 600 private collections in England and Wales. The Conway comprises over a million images of sculpture, ivories, seals and stained glass.
2) The Dia Art Foundation in New York has voiced concern that the latest...
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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.
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