In the beginning was the image, and the image was truth. Those were the days! Now there is no truth, only ‘truths’ negotiated between individual self-perception and social archetype, or self-perception of archetype… or something along those lines. Where that leaves the documentary photograph is one of the considerations of an excellent exhibition at Barcelona’s Caixa… Read more »
Tag: exhibition
Death and the Artisan – the art of Noé Bermejo
What makes Spanish art seem so expositive and yet so elusive? Does it hold the key to a better understanding of the ‘Spanish identity’? In the first of a series of profiles on Spain’s artists, I attempt to explore this and other intrigues… The artist Noé Bermejo (32) was born in a village in the municipality… Read more »
Interview: Susan Philipsz at Fundació Antoni Tàpies
One of the biggest problems in contemporary society is how to deal with all the shouting. Internal and external, intellectual and emotional, sometimes it seems as if the noise will never stop. Scottish artist Susan Philipsz, winner of the 2010 Turner Prize and a recipient of an OBE in 2014, creates audio installations that soothe even… Read more »
INTERVIEW: Carolina López on ‘Metamorphosis’ – the exhibition
The more we try to rationalise our world, the more we crave the weird and the wonderful. The exhibition Metamorphosis lures us into the interconnected worlds of two individual and one ‘twin set’ of artists, all of who work or worked on the fringe of film and animation. The exhibition, that took 10 years to find its… Read more »
Review: Roni Horn – Everything Sleeping… at Fundació Miró
My dream is to renovate my bathroom and put in wall-to-wall showering. In the middle, I’d have a huge, bubbling jacuzzi that takes up most of the floor space, with a sauna option operational via a toe button. Tropical plants would surround me, a robot would bring me drinks, and there I’d sit, sniffing steam… Read more »
Review: Kerry James Marshall – Painting and Other Stuff
Is it possible to reinvent yourself completely? After all, it gets to the point when you just don’t feel like you. Pick a university in some far-off town, move house, dump your partner, move abroad… Some call it running away; some call it finding yourself. ‘Course, ‘you’ are the least of your problems: family, mates,… Read more »
Estudio Nómada – Loop art route around the Barri Gòtic
Creator versus curator… aye, that old chestnut. Seriously, who wants to sleep with the guy with the great music collection to the same extent as he who composes his own minuets? And yet, when it comes to the visual arts, perhaps it’s worth reconsidering.* On Saturday afternoon I enjoyed a wee stroll through Barcelona’s Barri Gòtic, refreshingly deserted as a storm… Read more »
What’s On? Richard MacDonald sculptures at Barcelona’s MEAM
Only in the heights of extreme physical pain can one feel relief from the constant emotional torture. I reckon that’s the whole point behind study, sport, really loud concerts and really long after-parties … and thank god (we hope) that something might do it! albeit for a very short time. In this spirit, Richard MacDonald creates small, life-sized and… Read more »
REVIEW: Chris Killip – Trabajo/Work – Reina Sofia, Madrid
Photographer Chris Killip, born in Douglas on the Isle of Man, spent 16 years in Newcastle upon Tyne during the 1970s and ’80s. His images of the region’s industrial workers were published in the book In Flagrante (1988) with another series Seacoal (1985) documenting the lives of the villagers of nearby Lynemouth, who made their living fishing scrap coal out of the North Sea. In… Read more »
REVIEW: Delacroix vs Goya, battle of the dramatics
round 2 – DELACROIX French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) and Spaniard Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) are utterly distinctive artists, comparable in their contrasts. Each applied extraordinary imaginations to dramatic often violent subject matter, juxtaposing images and colours to excite and disturb. In 1826, as self-imposed Spanish exile Francisco de Goya daubed dark demons on the walls of his… Read more »