At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

Category: Exhibition

• art Culture Exhibition History London Painting Photography Sculpture Truth War

  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…

  May 14, 2019
• Ancient History Architecture art Culture Empire Exhibition History London Power War

  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…

  March 7, 2019
• art Church Culture Early Music Exhibition History Literature London Medieval Monarchy Politics Religion

  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…

  January 13, 2019
• art Culture Exhibition Hayward Gallery Installation London Minimalism Sculpture Space Shifters Technology

  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…

  January 4, 2019
• Architecture art Culture Design Exhibition Literature London Love Photography Poetry Sexuality

  Modern Couples at the Barbican Art Gallery review ****

  Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avant-Garde Barbican Art Gallery, 15th November 2018 Here’s another smart bit of curating from the team at the Barbican, in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou-Metz here led by Jane Alison. Track the history of modernism in art – not just painting, but sculpture, photography,…

  November 30, 2018
• art Classics Culture Exhibition Italy London Religion Renaissance

  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…

  November 25, 2018
• Architecture art Birmingham Culture Design Exhibition London Renaissance

  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…

  November 25, 2018
• 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
• 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