At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

Category: art

• art Culture Exhibition History London Photography Prints War

  Aftermath at Tate Britain review ****

  Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One Tate Britain, 29th August 2018 Historians abhor teleology these days. It’s a tricky business identifying events that “changed the history of the world”. For us simple layfolk though the First World War must surely mark a defining shift in the human…

  September 9, 2018
• art Culture Exhibition Oxford Photography USA

  America’s Cool Modernism at the Ashmolean Museum review ****

  America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keefe to Hopper Ashmolean Museum, 26th June 2018 Those clever people at the Ashmolean in Oxford have come up with another fine exhibition to rank alongside last year’s survey of Modernism in France Creating Modernism in France at the Ashmolean Museum review ****). There are plenty of…

  July 19, 2018
• art Culture London Theatre

  Red at the Wyndham’s Theatre review *****

  Red Wyndham’s Theatre, 21st June 2018 The original production of John Logan’s play Red at the Donmar Warehouse in 2009 with Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne passed me by. More fool me. So I was looking forward to catching this revival directed by Michael Grandage, (who directed the original), with…

  July 3, 2018
• Architecture art Culture Exhibition London Nature

  Monet and Architecture at the National Gallery review *****

  Monet and Architecture National Gallery, 14th June 2018 I am not the biggest fan of Monet’s later, post-Giverny work. Loved the actual garden, the white suits, the pipe, the spectacular beard, the repetition and the joy. But the colours make me queasy and the smudginess is disorientating. I know that…

  July 1, 2018
• art Classical Music Concert Contemporary Classical Culture London Romanticism

  Beethoven symphony cycle from Britten Sinfonia and Thomas Ades at the Barbican review *****

  Britten Sinfonia, Thomas Ades (conductor), Nicholas Hodges (piano), Joshua Bloom (bass) Barbican Hall, 22nd and 24th May 2018 Beethoven – Symphony No 4 in B flat major Op 60 Gerard Barry – Piano Concerto Beethoven – Symphony No 5 in C minor Op 67 Gerard Barry – The Conquest of…

  June 3, 2018
• Amsterdam art Culture Exhibition Prints TV

  Van Gogh and Japan exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum review ****

  Van Gogh and Japan Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam, 18th May 2018 There is an episode of the recent excellent BBC series Civilisations, on the history of art, where the presenter Simon Schama explores Japanese woodblock prints from the C!8 and C19 and shows their impact on the Western art canon.…

  May 31, 2018
• Architecture art Culture Exhibition London Photography Technology

  Andreas Gursky at the Hayward Gallery exhibition review ****

  Andreas Gursky Hayward Gallery, 4th April 2018 Odds are you have seen one of Andreas Gursky’s giant, hypnotic, immersive photographs. He charts the relationship between man and environment, fiddling with perspective, highlighting the repetition of our own industry and locating the beautiful and the ugly, often simultaneously. His viewpoint is…

  April 16, 2018
• art Culture Exhibition London

  All Too Human at Tate Britain review *****

  All Too Human: Bacon. Freud and a Century of Painting Life Tate Britain, 15th March 2018 I love paint. I love painting. I love paintings of people. I love Britain (though I appreciate that is a loaded statement). I love London. I love paintings of London. So, surprise, surprise, I…

  March 28, 2018
• art Culture Exhibition London

  Modigliani at Tate Modern review ***

  Modigliani Tate Modern, 5th March 2018 One Modigliani nude or one Modigliani portrait is a thing of not inconsiderable beauty. Less so, one hundred, or what feels like hundreds. The elongated bodies, the mask-like faces, the blank, almond-shaped eyes. Look beyond the USP’s though and the influences, from which Modigliani…

  March 11, 2018
• art Culture Exhibition Renaissance

  William Kentridge: Smoke, Ashes, Fable at Sint-Janshospitaal review ****

  William Kentridge: Smoke, Ashes, Fable Sint-Janshospitaal, Bruges, 20th February 2018 Off to Bruges and Brussels for a couple of days. Main purpose. To soak up the best paintings that the Northern Renaissance has to offer. Now you all know that it doesn’t get much prettier than Bruges, (though Ghent may…

  February 27, 2018