An anarchic desire to undermine the art world’s institutions lends art forgers a roguish, rebellious identity that is both compelling and unsavory.
Olivia McEwan
London based Olivia McEwan is a trained art historian with BA and MA degrees from the Courtauld Institute, now a freelance writer focusing on the London art world; this academic background contributing to a writing style that — positive or negative — is argued with crucial fairness and balance. Combined with curatorial awareness, she is also a practising painter of predominantly figurative work, lending a keen eye and understanding of painterly technique which powerfully informs her criticisms of historical and emerging arts.
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A Seance and a Beer With Hilma Af Klint and Piet Mondrian
Today’s audiences are evidently more open to Mondrian and af Klint’s sensibilities than those of their time.
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Every Dog Has Its Portrait
A little like dogs themselves, Portraits of Dogs at the Wallace Collection is a complimentary companion piece to the human story.
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What Does Peter Doig Have to Do With the Impressionists?
A new exhibition at London’s Courtauld Gallery pits Doig against artists like Cézanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. Does it work?
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A Women’s History of Global Abstraction
Action, Gesture, Paint is a pointed challenge to the common definition of Abstract Expressionism: White, male, American artists.
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A Dazzling and Troubling Display of Spanish Expansion
While acknowledging the horrors of colonialism, Spain and the Hispanic World also highlights the exchange of traditions and ideas.
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The Wondrously Defiant Art of Contemporary Ceramics
Strange Clay at the Hayward Gallery demonstrates the conceptual and technical innovation of contemporary ceramics with riotously joyful art.
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The Private Passions of Henry Fuseli
Fuseli and the Modern Woman is immensely pleasurable for the technical facility of an artist pursuing his own personal interests in an incredibly idiosyncratic style.
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The V&A Wanted to Subvert Toxic Masculinity but Ended Up Reinforcing It
The exhibition Fashioning Masculinities lets men have their cake and eat it too.
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How Disney Animation Provides a Gateway to Understanding Rococo
So closely do Disney’s animators assimilate the sensibility of French design that on occasion their source material appears almost more Disney than Disney itself.
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A Missed Opportunity to Bring an Eccentric Museum to Life With VR
In Space Popular’s presentation at the Sir John Soane’s Museum the VR content does not complement the physical, but widens the gulf between art history and contemporary art making.
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A Show Traces Philip Guston’s Impact on Contemporary Artists
A Thing for the Mind takes Philip Guston’s 1978 painting “Story” as a starting point to examine the myriad ways in which this piece has filtered into the work of other painters.
