Art Review
Leigh Bowery Was His Own Artwork
In a contemporary society made creatively bland by the homogenizing factor of social media, one yearns again for such an original artist.
Olivia McEwan
Art Review
José María Velasco Lovingly Captured a Changing Mexico
He celebrated the physical entity of Mexico in its exactness, rather than appealing to ingrained nationalistic European sensibilities of history painting.
Art Review
Edvard Munch Was a Magician of Light
A show at London’s National Portrait Gallery reveals the artist’s astonishing technical skills, but the wall texts are laugh-out-loud amusing at best and art historically dangerous at worst.
Art Review
The Courtauld’s Impressionism Show Is a Victim of Corporate Curating
It seems that the philanthropic funds that enable shows like this are at the expense of art historical depth and integrity, perhaps even curators’ jobs.
Book Review
Adventures in the Louvre Is the Guidebook Nobody Asked For
Rife with descriptions of “seductive” works, the former “New York Times” Paris bureau chief’s book reads more like a travel guide than the impartial reporting of a journalist.
Art
The Analog Charm of Pre-Internet Technological Art
Electric Dreams at Tate Modern shows the sheer extent to which human imagination and inventiveness harnessed technological progressions in the infancy of computing.
Book Review
Scheming Dealers, Auction House Collusion, Pub Gossip, Oh My!
A new book spills the tea on the 20th-century London art scene.
Art
Was Freud a Feminist?
A new show at London’s Freud Museum throws feminist ideas at the wall to see what sticks.
Art
Incarcerated Artists Get a Stage for Artistic Expression
Co-curated by Jeremy Deller and John Costi, No Comment is an exhibition of artworks created in criminal justice settings, entries to the 2024 annual Koestler award.
Art
Hew Locke Probes the British Museum’s History
The volume of problematic artifacts Locke uncovered in the British Museum’s archives illustrates the fundamental importance of objective historical research.
Art
The Eternal Dance Between Beauty and Decay
A London show examines the concept of beauty and its inevitable decay across pan-historical, pan-geographical, and pan-religious examples.
Art
An Exhibition Pairs Two Artists and Somehow Both Seem Worse
If it had simply suggested that François Boucher and Flora Yukhnovich are united in creating tasteful house decoration for the rich, the exhibition would be a success.