Exhibitions
A game for two
Some art can be made in solitude, straight out of the artist’s head. But portraiture is a game for two.…
Repo women
Aren’t you getting a little sick of the white cube? I am. I realised how sick last week after blundering…
American quartet
Politics and art can make for an awkward mix. Much more than with religious subjects it seems to matter whether…
The better angels of our nature
Late one afternoon, early in the year, I was walking through the Vatican Stanze with a small group of critics…
Dealer’s choice
One evening a few weeks ago I was on my way to the opening of an exhibition at the Venice…
Being and nothingness
Size, of course, matters a great deal in art; so does scale — which is a different matter. The art…
League of nations
‘Are you enjoying the Biennale?’ is a question one is often asked while patrolling the winding paths of the Giardini…
Put a spell on you
Many of the mediums from which art is made have been around for a long time. People have been painting…
Constable on sea
John Constable was, as we say these days, conflicted about Brighton. On the one hand, as he wrote in a…
The good, the indifferent and the simply awful
‘There is only one thing worse than homosexual art,’ the painter Patrick Procktor was once heard to declare at a…
Home is where the art is
The house in which I lived in Tokyo was built by my landlady, a former geisha. It stood on a…
A word in your ear
Do you, or do you not, fork out for an audioguide — one of those necklace-like, strappy contraptions you’re offered…
Cut it out
How do you make a work of art? One method is to cut things up and stick them back together…
Home help
There have been many explanations for what happened in the Italian Renaissance. Some stress the revival of classical antiquity, others…
Home help
There have been many explanations for what happened in the Italian Renaissance. Some stress the revival of classical antiquity, others…
Snap happy
These days the world is experiencing an unprecedented overload of photographs, a global glut of pictures. More and more are…
Snap happy
These days the world is experiencing an unprecedented overload of photographs, a global glut of pictures. More and more are…
On the make
Rudolfo Paolozzi was a great maker. In the summer, he worked almost without stopping in the family’s ice-cream shop, making…
American psyche
The latest exhibition at the Royal Academy is entitled America after the Fall. It deals with painting in the United…
American psyche
The latest exhibition at the Royal Academy is entitled America after the Fall. It deals with painting in the United…
On the make
Rudolfo Paolozzi was a great maker. In the summer, he worked almost without stopping in the family’s ice-cream shop, making…
The good, the bad and the ugly
Vladimir Putin notoriously declared the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 to be one of the greatest disasters of…
The good, the bad and the ugly
Vladimir Putin notoriously declared the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 to be one of the greatest disasters of…
Sunny delight
No Californian could have painted Hockney’s pools. No La-La Land artist, raised on sun and orange juice, would have done…
Sunny delight
No Californian could have painted Hockney’s pools. No La-La Land artist, raised on sun and orange juice, would have done…
