When Heinrich Wölfflin makes concluding observations on the nature of history in Principles of Art History (1932), in spite of himself, he cannot help reaching for images of complexity. How do we account for cessation and recommencement of art historical periods? ‘Only a spiral would meet the facts,’ he writes. How do we speak ofread more
Category: Exhibition Review
Christodoulos Panayiotou: RODEO
Almost exactly a decade before Christodoulos Panayiotou opened his recent show “False Form,” the Cypriot artist convened a roundtable at the University of Oxford among an astrophysicist, a historian of antiquity, a philosopher, and an artist, Jem Finer, on the theme of absence. The antiquarian introduced negative theology as a way to think beyond reason;read more
The Moving Museum: Şişhane Otopark, Istanbul
Contemporary art is often what occupies spaces after commerce has departed, or is yet to arrive. The Moving Museum’s Istanbul exhibition found temporary residence in Şişhane Otopark, a soon-to-be-open underground multi-storey carpark. Its street-level carapace, Şişhane Park, incorporates ‘sunset decks’ east-facing across the Bosporous and an outdoor ‘theatric room’. The park’s still incomplete mezzanine levelread more
The Infinite Mix: The Hayward Gallery at 180 The Strand
I arrived at ‘The Infinite Mix’, a Hayward offsite exhibition, organized in collaboration with The Vinyl Factory while the gallery’s Southbank home is being refurbished, some time after the other critics had been and gone. ‘The Infinite Mix’, Ben Luke wrote in London’s Evening Standard, is ‘a contender for the show of the year’; ‘Wonderful,’read more
Malcolm Le Grice: Richard Saltoun
As a filmmaker who, like many others of his generation, rented rather than sold work through the London Filmmakers’ Co-operative, Malcolm Le Grice’s first solo exhibition in a commercial gallery raises questions about the display, distribution and, finally, perhaps, displacement of such work. While the exhibition’s playful title – ‘No Idea’ – might inadvertently reflectread more
Alien Encounters: Nottingham Contemporary
Herman Poole Blount first visited the planet Saturn in 1936. There, he received his calling: quit college and pursue music for one day your vibes will deliver a world in chaos. By the mid-1950s Blount’s birth date, names, addresses and memories had become opaque, concealing, or perhaps revealing, the accruements of identity as a myth.read more
Condo: Various venues
Billed as “a collaborative exhibition by twenty-four international galleries across eight London spaces” and coordinated by Vanessa Carlos, director of Carlos/Ishikawa, Condo has generated discourse largely centered on the economic straits facing younger commercial galleries in the city. You might be the hottest ticket in town, but cultural capital alone won’t pay your invoices. Forread more
The Influence of Furniture on Love: Wysing Arts Centre
‘The Influence of Furniture on Love’, along with the exhibition ‘Hey, I’m Mr Poetic’, staged at Wysing Arts Centre between April and June this year, are both pauses to reflect on the institution’s 35-year history. Although Wysing has an exhibitions and events programme coordinated by in-house curators, and on-site studios and specialist workshops, over theread more
DeWain Valentine: Almine Rech Gallery
DeWain Valentine’s jewel-like cast polyester resin sculptures at Almine Rech, London, are an unexpected compliment to the Barbican’s survey of that prodigious Californian partnership, Charles and Ray Eames. Aside from being long-term adoptive Angelenos – wisened to the ways of smog-enhanced light and space – both artist and architects were, as Rowan Moore wrote ofread more
Stuart Brisley: Modern Art Oxford
Celebrated as one of Britain’s most compelling post-war performance artists, Stuart Brisley had, by the early 1980s, begun to suspect performance’s limitations, seeking to expand it by incorporating sculpture, photography, film and painting. At the turn of the millennium, Brisley instituted the Museum of Ordure – ordure: shit, trash, dirt, entropy – to build aread more