As Einstein famously said: “play is the highest form of research.” Play is how we learn about life and is, in fact part of my art practice. Francis Alÿs explores the importance and ubiquity of play worldwide in Ricochets, the current exhibition at the Barbican. Watch videos of games in different countries. Some are easily […]
Exhibitions
Al Held at White Cube Bermondsey
Hard-edged geometric painting isn’t something I normally go for. These blog posts however, are about things I find interesting and my curiosity was piqued by this exhibition of Al Held’s work at White Cube Bermondsey. Seeing this felt like looking at a puzzle. I enjoyed discovering what seemed to me to be mathematical twists. Was […]
Miss La La – the person in that painting by Degas.
The National Gallery in London puts on fascinating shows giving context and background to some of its paintings. Degas and Miss La La is one of those exhibitions and is free to visit. I’ve seen this painting many times and had never really thought about who the subject was (not even that she was a […]
Zachary Eastwood-Bloom: Rewired at Pangolin London
Zachary Eastwood-Bloom: Rewired is an exhibition of mainly new work produced in response to the end of life and death of the artist’s father who was himself an artist. The show opens with these two pages found folded together among Eastwood-Bloom’s late father’s possessions. Norman Eastwood’s beautiful handwriting about abstraction sits next to drawings which […]
The Last Caravaggio at the National Gallery, London
Caravaggio‘s tightly cropped scenes and dramatic lighting are cinematic catmint, influencing many film makers including Derek Jarman and Martin Scorsese. The Last Caravaggio, a recent exhibition at the National Gallery in London, showed “The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula”, his last painting, dated 1610. A very dark, almost monochrome piece, it captures the moment the arrow […]
The Meddling Fiend by Nicola Turner
It’s the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy where you can see one of the most interesting pieces for free in the Annenberg Courtyard, just off Piccadilly. Sculptor Nicola Turner has created “The Meddling Fiend” after studying works by Joshua Reynolds, the Academy’s first President whose statue stands at the entrance. Made of a range […]
