Category Archives: Discussed

————————————————————————————> Longer articles, think pieces and reviews

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West End whammy: Tom Wolseley’s “House”

• One object of an art trawl is to discover talented artists I’ve never come across before, and on a West End jaunt I’ve just found two whose installations struck me as outstanding: the first being Tom Wolseley [more]

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West End whammy: Tom Wolseley’s “House”

• One object of an art trawl is to discover talented artists I’ve never come across before, and on a West End jaunt I’ve just found two whose installations struck me as outstanding: the first being Tom Wolseley [more]

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Wind and strings: five of Documenta 13′s best

• I’ve given a venue-by venue guide to Documenta 13 next door, but here in more depth are five exhibits I especially enjoyed, from moving musical memories to a breezy empty room [more]

Philipsz P1010567 FEAT 1

Wind and strings: five of Documenta 13′s best

• I’ve given a venue-by venue guide to Documenta 13 next door, but here in more depth are five exhibits I especially enjoyed, from moving musical memories to a breezy empty room [more]

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An illustrated guide to Documenta 13

• With themes including books and bunkers, moons and mountains, apples and atoms, five-yearly art-fest Documenta is overwhelming – so here’s a guide to seeing the best of it [more]

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An illustrated guide to Documenta 13

• With themes including books and bunkers, moons and mountains, apples and atoms, five-yearly art-fest Documenta is overwhelming – so here’s a guide to seeing the best of it [more]

Tate Modern Launch The Damien Hirst Retrospective

Hirst v. Spalding: of blow-flies and blow-hards

• Or, the pointlessness of arguing about Damien Hirst’s posterity in the time of someone currently living – why Julian Spalding is just a wily suckerfish feeding off the droppings of a juicy shark [more]

Tate Modern Launch The Damien Hirst Retrospective

Hirst v. Spalding: of blow-flies and blow-hards

• Or, the pointlessness of arguing about Damien Hirst’s posterity in the time of someone currently living – why Julian Spalding is just a wily suckerfish feeding off the droppings of a juicy shark [more]

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David Shrigley: brain food and mind loops

• Why an obsessive taxonomy would better suit Shrigley’s catalogue of absurdity than the Hayward’s polite “Brain Activity”, and an odd echo with a top Antipodean artist [more]

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David Shrigley: brain food and mind loops

• Why an obsessive taxonomy would better suit Shrigley’s catalogue of absurdity than the Hayward’s polite “Brain Activity”, and an odd echo with a top Antipodean artist [more]

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How info-lite museum labels deprive us all

• The quality of the Herbert’s holdings made me want to know more about several pieces, but the labels failed to deliver. To use some dumbed-down labelling myself, #epicfail [more]

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How info-lite museum labels deprive us all

• The quality of the Herbert’s holdings made me want to know more about several pieces, but the labels failed to deliver. To use some dumbed-down labelling myself, #epicfail [more]

George Shaw “Scenes from the Passion - Ten Shilling Wood” (2002) web_FEAT

George Shaw: scenes of mortality and wonder

• Suburban unease in Coventry’s Herbert Gallery: the Humbrol devotionals of George Shaw, plus three small-town masterworks by Carel Weight, Stanley Spencer and LS Lowry [more]

George Shaw “Scenes from the Passion - Ten Shilling Wood” (2002) web_FEAT

George Shaw: scenes of mortality and wonder

• Suburban unease in Coventry’s Herbert Gallery: the Humbrol devotionals of George Shaw, plus three small-town masterworks by Carel Weight, Stanley Spencer and LS Lowry [more]

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Yayoi Kusama: beyond the infinity room

• Yayoi Kusama’s dazzling “Infinity Room” at Tate Modern recalls Japan’s Gutai group and three glittering installations by Tatsuo Miyajima, Chu Yun and Cildo Meireles [more]

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Yayoi Kusama: beyond the infinity room

• Yayoi Kusama’s dazzling “Infinity Room” at Tate Modern recalls Japan’s Gutai group and three glittering installations by Tatsuo Miyajima, Chu Yun and Cildo Meireles [more]

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From Kusama to Shrigley by artist’s tube map

• London’s tube maps are currently decorated by Yayoi Kusama, with the 15th artist’s cover since 2004. But can you remember the other 14 – and was David Shrigley’s scribble the best? [more]

David Shrigley, Map of the London Underground, February 2006_FEAT

From Kusama to Shrigley by artist’s tube map

• London’s tube maps are currently decorated by Yayoi Kusama, with the 15th artist’s cover since 2004. But can you remember the other 14 – and was David Shrigley’s scribble the best? [more]

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Four abstract artists in painterly conversation

• From wrestling metal to pouring paint, from modernism to microscopy – an engrossing talk on abstraction with DJ Simpson, Daniel Sturgis, Mark Francis and Ian Davenport [more]

Daniel Sturgis  Oscillate Mildly_FEATsm

Four abstract artists in painterly conversation

• From wrestling metal to pouring paint, from modernism to microscopy – an engrossing talk on abstraction with DJ Simpson, Daniel Sturgis, Mark Francis and Ian Davenport [more]

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A “Fifth Plinth” at the arse end of Elephant

• New art in gritty south London: a life size breeze block replica of Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth, some blokey Mesolithic primitives, and an enjoyable show of non-painted painting [more]

Plinth 60817 FEAT

A “Fifth Plinth” at the arse end of Elephant

• New art in gritty south London: a life size breeze block replica of Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth, some blokey Mesolithic primitives, and an enjoyable show of non-painted painting [more]

david hockney Woldgate Lane to Burton Agnes, 2007_FEAT

David Hockney: bigger pictures, smaller splash

• Hockney can be brilliant, but the overblown “A Bigger Picture” shows him below par – if only he would start reporting honestly again rather than relying on bravura technique like an old rock star [more]

david hockney Woldgate Lane to Burton Agnes, 2007_FEAT

David Hockney: bigger pictures, smaller splash

• Hockney can be brilliant, but the overblown “A Bigger Picture” shows him below par – if only he would start reporting honestly again rather than relying on bravura technique like an old rock star [more]

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When Rodin met Buren at Turner-on-Sea

• Brian Sewell calls it Slough-on-Sea, but I enjoyed a clash of old and new at Margate’s Turner Contemporary – and I don’t mean JMW Turner’s watercolours and Hamish Fulton’s walks [more]

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When Rodin met Buren at Turner-on-Sea

• Brian Sewell calls it Slough-on-Sea, but I enjoyed a clash of old and new at Margate’s Turner Contemporary – and I don’t mean JMW Turner’s watercolours and Hamish Fulton’s walks [more]

Pipilotti Rist's underpant light installation at the Hayward, "Hiplights Or Enlighted Hips" (2011)

Pipilotti Rist: overrated underpants?

• Is Pipilotti Rist’s work popular because you get to chillax in front of rave films starring naked women – or was there more to her recent Hayward show than just installations of pants? [more]

Pipilotti Rist's underpant light installation at the Hayward, "Hiplights Or Enlighted Hips" (2011)

Pipilotti Rist: overrated underpants?

• Is Pipilotti Rist’s work popular because you get to chillax in front of rave films starring naked women – or was there more to her recent Hayward show than just installations of pants? [more]

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Unputdownable architecture rant

• Just finished reading this book, Owen Hatherley’s The New Ruins of Great Britain – who’d have thought an extended architecture rant could be so unputdownable? Over the last decade I’ve visited most [more]

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Unputdownable architecture rant

• Just finished reading this book, Owen Hatherley’s The New Ruins of Great Britain – who’d have thought an extended architecture rant could be so unputdownable? Over the last decade I’ve visited most [more]

Mark Wallinger's "mark", Alaska Street, Waterloo

Mark Wallinger’s mysterious mark

• I couldn’t decide if “Mark” was a moniker or a conceptual statement when I first spotted this mysterious piece of graffiti politely chalked in the middle of acres of brick wall, but it struck me as a clever, so [more]

Mark Wallinger's "mark", Alaska Street, Waterloo

Mark Wallinger’s mysterious mark

• I couldn’t decide if “Mark” was a moniker or a conceptual statement when I first spotted this mysterious piece of graffiti politely chalked in the middle of acres of brick wall, but it struck me as a clever, so [more]

Memento mori: On Kawara, Amy Winehouse and Stuart Cumberland

On Kawara, Cumberland and Winehouse

• On Kawara daily states that he’s alive; Stuart Cumberland names works after dead people; and on the day Amy Winehouse died, I had a thought-provoking encounter with all three of them [more]

Memento mori: On Kawara, Amy Winehouse and Stuart Cumberland

On Kawara, Cumberland and Winehouse

• On Kawara daily states that he’s alive; Stuart Cumberland names works after dead people; and on the day Amy Winehouse died, I had a thought-provoking encounter with all three of them [more]

Punters kill time watching The Clock at White Cube, Masons Yard

Watching The Clock in the wee hours

• After a night of immersion in Christian Marclay’s masterwork The Clock, sneaking past a lone toiling cleaner into the next-door hotel’s empty, over-lit washrooms was like being in a film of my own [more]

Punters kill time watching The Clock at White Cube, Masons Yard

Watching The Clock in the wee hours

• After a night of immersion in Christian Marclay’s masterwork The Clock, sneaking past a lone toiling cleaner into the next-door hotel’s empty, over-lit washrooms was like being in a film of my own [more]