Category: art
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Don McCullin exhibition at Tate Britain review ****
Don McCullin Tate Britain, 1st May 2019 The main event first. The astonishing work of Don McCullin, the renowned “war” photographer, though this epithet doesn’t get close to covering the depth of the work revealed in this retrospective at the Tate, (now finished, sorry). McCullin, now 83, left art college…
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Some quick notes on exhibitions visited so far in 2019
The Tourist has been shockingly remiss so far this year in documenting his adventures in the visual and plastic arts. Some plagiarised comments on the I Am Ashurbanipal survey of Assyrian art at the British Museum aside, I have failed to document any other exhibition visits. So, for the sake…
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I Am Ashurbanipal exhibition at the British Museum review ****
I Am Ashurbanipal King of the World, King of Assyria British Museum, 15th February 2019 Crikey. Those Assyrians had a way with reliefs carved in gypsum/alabaster. Even if it was primarily all in the service of terrifying aggrandisement. The King hunting, the King and his soldiers slaying his enemies, the…
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Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms at the British Library review *****
Anglo-Saxon Kingsdoms: Art, Word, War British Library, 30th December 2018 I mean it isn’t all books. There are charters and letters as well. And pottery, coins, art and jewels. But there are a lot of books. Oh my word though, what beautiful books. If you are at all interested in…
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Space Shifters exhibition at the Hayward Gallery ***
Space Shifters Hayward Gallery, 21st December 2018 Here is another one of the cleverly constructed exhibitions from the Hayward team which brings together a variety of visual works (20 in total), in different media, from different artists which delight, intrigue and entertain. The works span some five decades, (with some…
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Mantegna and Bellini at the National Gallery review *****
Mantegna and Bellini National Gallery, 11th November 2018 11th November was turning into a very busy day for the Tourist. Fresh from the heady Edward Burne-Jones phantasmagoria at Tate Britain and a proper Sunday lunch, it was off to the National, now solo, for these Old Masters, before rounding off…
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Edward Burne-Jones at Tate Britain review ****
Edward Burne Jones Tate Britain, 11th November 2018 Turns out Burne-Jones isn’t quite as awful as I had previously thought. Don’t get me wrong. All that hippy-dippy, fey, dreamy. dusky-toned, doe-eyed, ginger-permed, long-bodied, nymph-y, mannequin-esque, briar-strewn, Arthurian, industrialisation-denying, fake-Medieval, cod-Renaissance daubing is still guaranteed to do my head in. But…
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Hogarth’s Progress at the Rose Kingston review ***
Hogarth’s Progress: The Art of Success and The Taste of the Town Rose Theatre Kingston, 21st October 2018 South West London was a popular place for the cultural, liberal, metropolitan elite in the first half of the C18. It still is. Hogarth, Horace Walpole, David Garrick, Henry Fielding, Alexander Pope,…
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The Habit of Art at Richmond Theatre review *****
The Habit of Art Richmond Theatre, 19th October 2018 There are a handful of plays that I regret not seeing when they first appeared. Not those I wish I had seen, That would be a very long list and cover those periods where I was not putting the required viewing…
At Home He Feels Like A Tourist 