Tate Britain‘s exhibition Picasso and Modern British Art sets out to trace Pablo Picasso‘s influence on Britain. Hence much of the exhibition looks at British artists influenced by Picasso, including Henry Moore, Francis Bacon and Ben Nicholson, drawing upon the research carried out for other recent exhibitions and the Tate’s own collection, and the exhibition consequently features several works that have appeared recently. Therefore it seems more targeted at the casual audience and tourists during this Olympic year, trying to introduce fresh audiences to the British artists shown. A considerable space and volume of wall text is devoted to indicating works bought by British collectors. This doesn’t seem to add much to the understanding of the artist’s work, or really to indicate that British collectors had a taste for particular genres of Picasso’s practice, but does help to reinforce the country’s importance within the art world and as a powerful nation in the modern world. Indeed a more pressing reason for this section may be to encourage visitors to collect the work of contemporary artists, demonstrating that British collectors can help cultivate major artists, and that by collecting work, one day you might be remembered by being named in a museum exhibiting it in the future.
All That Glitters Isn’t Necessarily Gold
9 Mar
Hew Locke: Starchitect. Image courtesy of the artist, ArtSway and Hales Gallery, London.
Hew Locke‘s exhibition at ArtSway consists of works made of a variety of gold and silver plastic from pound shops, the most striking of which form shields with crossed swords behind, like would belong in a mediaeval castle. Additionally plastic pearl necklaces have been used to draw royal crests on plain white fabric squares that hang like Royal Standards, which could be attached to trumpets heralding the forthcoming royal wedding. Locke’s work is contained in a structure something like a bedouin tent constructed inside the gallery from sheets of plywood. Each of these is pierced by numerous large star shapes through which the gallery lighting plus some additional lights shine through, creating something closer to a planetarium.
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The Studio
Whilst graduates of Central St Martins Jessica Windhorst and Hanping Feng depicted domestic interiors, as did Zsofia Schweger at the Slade School of Fine Art, it seems that a number of graduating students have turned their attention to the environment in which they work: the studio. Alexander Duncan has observed the sloping end of the […]
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Everyday Life at Central St Martins 2015
Reflecting on works from 2015’s degree show at Central St Martins (MA and BA) it seems many of the artists have reflected upon the everyday in their practice. Stephen Johnstone (The Everyday 2008: 12) writes “the rise of the everyday in contemporary art is usually understood in terms of a desire to bring […] uneventful […]
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Are We Communicating Yet?
Recently a theme has emerged of artworks addressing communication modes and creating interventions in language. In The Pool Exhibition for Goldsmiths MFA, Jin Wook Moon has created a new language using a variety of everyday objects as symbols, like a variation on sign language. This was presented plastered across the exhibition space walls, in a newspaper […]
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Life as a Veneer
In retrospect, at a selection of exhibitions in London over the winter a number of works emerged which use veneers and discuss thin surfaces. At the end of 2012 Henrik Schrat exhibited a series of two dimensional works at IMT Gallery made in the marquetry tradition from tessellated pieces of different woods that form scenes for […]
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A Return to Classicism
Correlations between art and politics have been repeatedly shown and this is clearly apparent among a selection of this year’s graduates that have returned to classical forms, responding to economical situations in Greece particularly. Perhaps this will become known as Post Neo-Classicism or Anarchaic Art. At Goldsmiths Hannah Lyons (BA Art Practice) has created a […]
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