Mark Sheerin is an art writer from the UK. He also contributes to Culture24 and Frame & Reference, together with his own blog Criticismism. In 2012 he appeared in Nature, a volume in the series Documents of Contemporary Art from Whitechapel/MIT.
BRIGHTON, UK — Warhol’s old mantra, “I think everybody should like everybody,” has been endowed with fresh significance in Belfast, where his first show ever to take place North of Ireland’s contentious border is now underway at the Metropolitan Arts Centre.
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BRIGHTON, UK — While laid up in Freud’s final consulting room, artist David Blandy was moved to recall a childhood trauma: “I grew up on the crime side, the New York Times side.” A hypnotherapist encouraged him to continue: “Yo, dwelling in the past, flashbacks when I was young. Who ever thought that I would have a baby girl and three sons?” Astute observers will recognise those experiences as rap lyrics, so why was a floppy-haired English artist channelling Raekwon and Ghostface Killah? And, although beside the point, just what would the grandfather of psychoanalysis have made of life on the mean streets of Staten Island?
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BRIGHTON, UK — Swapping out pieces in a game of chess is only a smart move provided you hold the most on the board, or at least the strongest position. But a new show at the Barbican in London suggests chess could be a “metaphor of exchange” between the artists it lines up. According to the theory, Duchamp swaps ideas with acolytes: John Cage, Jasper Johns, Merce Cunningham, and Robert Rauschenberg. And yet the Frenchman, superb chess player that he was, came out conceptually on top by the time of his death in 1968.
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BRIGHTON, UK — “No one I know is selling any work,” says artist Scott Mason, who bolsters his income with teaching and the occasional performance, such as the one he is about to give tonight. And none of the dozen people in attendance at the space, Meter Room in Coventry, is waving a checkbook. But then again this is an artist-run space. Mason’s gig and the surrounding exhibition is an exploration of this very type of institution. Collectors, although no doubt welcome, are not really expected.
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BRIGHTON, UK — For several decades now we have been laboring under the impression David Bowie is a pop star. But a new show at Tate Liverpool puts Bowie where he firmly belongs, as a central figure in art. It proves the pioneering musician is also a muse, a performance artist, and a conceptualist all rolled into one.
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BRIGHTON, UK — Tucked behind an aging mews of terraced houses in the historic city of Cambridge is a hidden modernist science facility. Negotiating tight security and an immaculate grey gravel drive, expectations climb as you approach an understated entrance in a warm yet sleek façade. The straight lines inspire; a horizontal accent calms. The building has also been sunk a little to root the botanical research lab in the present. If you ever held childhood aspirations toward being a scientist, this structure is designed to revive those dreams before you even cross the threshold.
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BRIGHTON, UK — For the duration of the visit, we are invited to pretend that a space around the corner from the British Museum has become that site of Beat-generation novelist, painter, and performer William S. Burroughs’ fevered imagination: “Interzone” from the novel Naked Lunch.
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BRIGHTON, UK — The difficulties facing post-war German artists can seem insurmountable. And it may not be fair to the likes of Beuys, Kiefer, or Richter to look for an adequate response to the worst atrocities of WWII; we should surely share the guilt around. But a lesser-known artist from Pforzheim has apparently cracked the worst dilemmas facing his countrymen. His name is Manfred Mohr and he has maneuvered German art out of its cul-de-sac with a healthy dose of logic and a working knowledge of early computer technology.
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BRIGHTON, UK — Under normal circumstances, art doesn’t come with a manual. But at a new show in Southwark, London, visitors soon find circumstances are not so normal.
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BRIGHTON, UK — If a picture is worth a thousand words, Nihilistic Optimistic is worth about a million. The new show from Tim Noble and Sue Webster at Blain Southern is super photogenic, and therein may lie its appeal.
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Don't You Understand, I'm an Artist!
Dolphins Rape People?
Watch an Artist Have a Meltdown and Destroy a Canvas With Panache
The Whitney Museum's New Logo Goes Nowhere
Watch Out, Art World: Amazon Is About to Start Selling Art
Can Rectal Realism (and Other 1970s Art) Inspire?
A View from the Easel
The Bermuda Triangle of Art
Images Worth a Dozen Words
Overheard in the Art World
Beer with a Painter: John Walker
No Supper for You! Ai Weiwei Goes Heavy Metal
