Arts news

• The Paper Museum review – the pelican paintings that changed art forever

  17-06-2019 13:50 via theguardian.com
  Barber Institute, Birmingham
  From mammoth fossils to a civet’s anal glands, these drawings of the natural world prove how modern nature photography can be traced back to the pioneering work of Galileo On 17 August 1603 – they chose the day for its excellent astrological alignments of Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury – a group of friends got together in Rome to found a society to study and record the natural world. They wanted to emulate the lynx, believed to be the most keen-eyed of
  
  Read more

• Patrick Lovely obituary

  24-04-2024 18:59 via theguardian.com
  
  My father, Patrick Lovely, who has died aged 85, was an artist and art teacher whose paintings and drawings, especially in later life, documented the everyday activities of ordinary people, especially in Brixton, south London, where he lived for many years.His Brixton work focused particularly on the experience of Irish and Windrush communities there, often depicting scenes inside local drinking holes. He won prizes for those paintings, including at the Spirit of London exhibition at the Royal F
  
  Read more

• The world’s most disappointing masterpiece: why does the Mona Lisa leave so many people underwhelmed?

  24-04-2024 17:36 via theguardian.com
  
  Online, Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting is the subject of thousands of negative reviews – on display at the Louvre, it is deluged with visitors. Is the problem the artwork or the stressful experience of seeing it?Name: Mona Lisa.Age: Approximately 520 years old. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• This Turner prize shortlist is one in the eye for petty nationalists

  24-04-2024 17:13 via theguardian.com
  
  This year’s globally inclusive lineup is part of a much deeper and longer conversation about what culture is – and who has a voice
  • Claudette Johnson’s art for Cotton Capital nominated for Turner prizeThis is a great shortlist. The artists here make art in highly individual and different ways and none are the next hot young thing. Sixty-five-year-old Claudette Johnson’s work reflects her first generation British Caribbean background. The art of Delaine Le Bas, 58, h
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Critics, cancellation and cleanskin wine: the Australian novels satirising the art world

  24-04-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  New books from Bri Lee and Liam Pieper reach into the frictions and follies of the art industry. But are they fact or fantasy?Get our weekend culture and lifestyle emailThe art world can be a space of wonder, beauty, bravery, connection and community. As an art critic and art historian, I’ve spent the past decade swimming in these waters. But it can also feel like a badly written joke: shaped by the 1%, populated by the shrinking middle classes, picketed by anarchists and run by unpaid int
  
  Read more

• Claudette Johnson’s art for Cotton Capital nominated for Turner prize

  24-04-2024 13:21 via theguardian.com
  
  Guardian-commissioned portrait of abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond among works competing for £25,000 prizeClaudette Johnson has been nominated for this year’s Turner prize for her work, which includes a portrait of the African-American slavery abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond commissioned as part of the Guardian’s award-winning Cotton Capital series.Pio Abad, Johnson, Jasleen Kaur and Delaine Le Bas will compete for the £25,000 prize, while the nominated artists will each
  
  Read more

• Bring Caravaggio to those of us outside the M25 | Brief letters

  23-04-2024 18:54 via theguardian.com
  
  Cultural divide | A slice of delight | Surgery song choices | Beard prejudice | Carer’s allowanceI’m so pleased to see that the National Gallery exhibition The Last Caravaggio is free (Review, 16 April). Now all I have to do is navigate the byzantine system needed to book a train ticket, get to a mainline station, and book an overnight stay in London. If only there was a way such exhibitions could be held in more central areas of the country, cheaper and more convenient for many of u
  
  Read more

• Expressionists review – the vivid premonitions of Europe’s wildest-eyed geniuses

  23-04-2024 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Tate Modern, London
  Tate Modern’s survey of Kandinsky, Münter and the rest of the avant garde Blue Rider group is an exhilarating riot of colour – but also abounds with anxieties about the coming conflicts of the 20th centuryWithin the bright colours of this exhilarating survey of the Blue Rider group of avant garde artists, who worked in Munich and the Bavarian Alps in the years before the first world war, horror lurks. Look at Wassily Kandinsky’s paintings of the medieva
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• ‘Beacon of the world’: ex-Uffizi chief vows to save Florence if elected mayor

  23-04-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Backed by Giorgia Meloni’s party, Eike Schmidt says cracking down on burger stands, crime and overtourism will help restore statusThe former director of the Uffizi gallery in Florence has promised a crackdown on crime and burger stands in his quest to restore the Tuscan capital to is former status as a cultural “beacon of the world”.German-born Eike Schmidt, 55, is standing in the city’s mayoral election on a civic list backed by the prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s
  
  Read more

• Venice Biennale 2024 review – everything everywhere all at once

  22-04-2024 17:23 via theguardian.com
  
  From an alligator ride across Asia to an escape to outer space, the Venice Biennale’s ‘foreigners everywhere’ theme leaves our critic beguiled, tantalised – and frequently appalledVenice. Terrible. Foreigners everywhere, and it is even worse during the biennale, where the exhibition opened to the public on Saturday. Marked by unrest and protests, the 60th Venice Biennale leaves us uncertain of art’s ability to draw us together in a world in crisis. It is filled with
  
  Read more

• ‘Great change is possible’: female artists grapple with social and political upheaval

  22-04-2024 16:31 via theguardian.com
  
  A new group exhibition brings together the work of 28 artists from America and beyond who use their work to cover how difficult times have inspired themAbraham Lincoln seated in a monumental chair. Thomas Jefferson standing tall surrounded by excerpts from the Declaration of Independence. Andrew Jackson raising his hat as his horse rises on its rear legs.Washington’s statues tell a heroic story, usually with a white male face. But the newest arrival, while carved from Carrara marble like a
  
  Read more

• Stephen review – fact blurs with fiction in powerfully raw study of addiction

  22-04-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Stephen Giddings gives a committed performance as a recovering alcoholic who’s started betting again in this often tense experimental docudramaThe line between fact and fiction is thin to vanishing in this Liverpool-set experimental docudrama, a study of addiction and how it rumbles down through generations. It’s directed by visual artist Melanie Manchot and is being shown as a multiscreen installation in Cornwall as well as screening in cinemas. Manchot worked with a Liverpool recov
  
  Read more

• ‘Luminous’ truck strap artwork wins prestigious Biennale prize in first for New Zealand

  22-04-2024 06:44 via theguardian.com
  
  Collective of Māori artists wins Golden Lion at Venice Biennale for Takapau, a large-scale installation inspired by woven matsA Māori artist collective’s dazzling, intricate canopy woven from reflective trucking straps has been awarded a prestigious global art prize– the first time a New Zealand artwork has won the award.On Saturday, the jury of the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale awarded New Zealand’s Mataaho Collective the Golden Lion for be
  
  Read more

• ‘George’s machines’: museum devoted to George Wyllie opens on the Clyde

  21-04-2024 16:28 via theguardian.com
  
  The Wyllieum will showcase work of ‘social sculptor’ who used humour to make serious criticisms of climate crisis and capitalismHe was the artist who sailed a paper boat past New York, set a straw locomotive on fire over the Clyde, and inserted a question mark into the word sculpture.George Wyllie, a prolific, self-taught “social sculptor” who worked with steel, stone, wood and paper, used humour to make deeply serious criticisms of the climate crisis, capitalism and Brit
  
  Read more

• Does mysterious painting prove blue denim was around 200 years before Levi’s?

  21-04-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Woman Begging With Two Children, by an unknown artist, shows what appears to be a denim skirt in 17th-century ItalyThe origin of the world’s most enduringly popular fabric is in ­dispute, as a new exhibition spotlights a claim that firmly links denim with 17th-­century Italy and takes its history back 200 years.Blue denim, that all-American ­symbol of informality and a life lived on the open range, is already also contentiously attributed to ­southern France, while mod
  
  Read more

• ‘Most paintings should have been burnt’: Augustus John’s granddaughter attacks artist’s later works

  21-04-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Celebrated painter ‘went down the drain from the 1930s’, claims Rebecca John in a new interviewThe granddaughter of Augustus John, Britain’s most famous and successful artist of the early 20th century, has delivered a damning critique of his later works. Rebecca John, the leading authority on the artist, says in her first interview for two decades that “most should have been burned. My grandfather went down the drain from the 1930s onwards, drank too much, lost his judgme
  
  Read more

• Armed guards, reparations and the lives of others: Venice Biennale 2024 – review

  21-04-2024 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  There’s less glitz and glamour, more a mood of solemnity and concern at the 60th edition of the Biennale, with revelatory work from Nigeria, Bulgaria and the global south living up to the festival’s provocative subtitle, Foreigners Everywhere…Armed soldiers guard the Israeli pavilion, stamping out their cigarettes in the pale Venetian dust. The doors are locked. The artist probably had no choice but to close her installation, given the unending atrocities. A notice in the wind
  
  Read more

• Kamilaroi Bigambul artist Archie Moore wins Gold Lion award at Venice Biennale

  21-04-2024 03:29 via theguardian.com
  
  Visual artist Archie Moore has been awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the Venice Biennale 2024 for his exhibition kith and kin, becoming the first Australian to receive the top honour. Moore brought the Australia Pavilion to life with a genealogical chart informed by 65,000 years of history. With kith and kin, Moore highlights our shared ancestry and humanity. Artwork commemorating Indigenous Australian history triumphs in Venice‘Very totemic and very Aboriginal&rs
  
  Read more

• Artwork commemorating Indigenous Australian history triumphs in Venice

  20-04-2024 17:41 via theguardian.com
  
  Prize for best national participation goes to Archie Moore, who becomes first Australian artist to win itThe artist Archie Moore has won the prestigious Golden Lion for best national participation at the 2024 Venice Biennale – the first time an Australian artwork has won the prize.With this year’s theme of “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere,” Moore won the award for his artwork, kith and kin, at the Australia Pavilion. The work, which has involved the artist
  
  Read more

• ‘The model loved the departure from traditional portraiture’ – Kamzy Nuel’s best phone picture

  20-04-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The vibrant colours of Lagos take centre stage in this bold image by the Nigerian photographerWhen location scouting for this shoot, Kamzy Nuel was primarily hunting for colour. He settled on the National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria. “There are so many vibrant colours around, giving room to have as much as possible in the frame to work with,” the Nigerian photographer says.Hoping to “portray a fine blend of modernism and culture” in the styling, Nue
  
  Read more

• From Abigail to Taylor Swift: a complete guide to this week’s entertainment

  20-04-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A girl kidnapped by criminals turns out to be less innocent than she seems in a new horror flick, while the queen of stadium pop releases a new double albumAbigail
  Out now
  Very loosely based on the 1936 horror Dracula’s Daughter, this new spin on the material sees a little girl kidnapped by a group of criminals, in the hope of extracting a hefty ransom from her Russian underworld mobster father. Unfortunately for them, Abigail isn’t quite the young innocent that she seems. Conti
  
  Read more

• Weekend podcast: the extraordinary story of the biggest art fraud in American history, plus Zoe Williams on Liz Truss

  20-04-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Zoe Williams explores the greatest mystery of modern politics: Liz Truss’ self belief (1m15s), and Charlotte Edwardes delves into the extraordinary inside story of the biggest art fraud in American history (5m53s) Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Let’s tell the story of art without men | Letters

  19-04-2024 19:29 via theguardian.com
  
  Dr Suzy Tutchell champions the work of past and present female artists, while Caroline Higgitt takes Francesco Vezzoli’s challengeIf the art world is so “vast and varied”, as the subheading on your article says (Art unlocked, 13 April), why were 10 male artists and only three women artists featured? Why, yet again, are we being asked to consider masterworks, “old and new”, which reflect a not-so-varied, male-dominated canon?It’s 2024, Katy Hessel has writ
  
  Read more

• The Guardian view on the Royal Academy: reframing a bloody past | Editorial

  19-04-2024 19:25 via theguardian.com
  
  The Royal Academy is examining the part it has played in Britain’s history of slavery and empire – and the usual carping suspects will not be pleasedVery recent visitors from Mars may not know of the regular attacks on the National Trust for being “woke”, but the rest of us have heard plenty. The trust’s latest onslaught on British values has something to do with the lack of butter in the scones. Never mind that they have been made like this for years; Tory MPs and
  
  Read more

• ‘No death in Venice’: Israel-Gaza tensions infiltrate biennale

  19-04-2024 16:49 via theguardian.com
  
  Protests erupt outside Israel pavilion, official Israeli artist pulls out, and Ukraine team puts up posters showing maps of nearest bomb shelterBillionaires’ yachts and protests; cocktail parties and culture wars; bellinis and boycotts. The Venice Biennale’s opening preview days are always a place of odd clashes and juxtapositions, as artists, curators, critics, and wealthy collectors descend on the city to take in often politically radical art.But this year’s edition vibrates
  
  Read more

• Expressionists turn blue, Gormley gardens and Rauschenberg reaches out – the week in art

  19-04-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Pioneering German modernists, a stately new setting for Britain’s best-known sculptor and Rauschenberg’s utopian cultural exchange – all in your weekly dispatchExpressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider
  The passion and spirituality of a key movement in early 20th century German art jerks back to life like Dr Caligari’s creature.
  • Tate Modern, London, from 25 April until 20 October Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Faith Ringgold obituary

  19-04-2024 11:49 via theguardian.com
  
  Artist whose paintings, textiles and sculpture aimed to depict ‘everything happening in America’ amid the tumult of the 1960sOn a damp night in November 1970, Faith Ringgold, who has died aged 93, was locking the doors to an exhibition at the Judson Memorial church in Greenwich Village, when four strangers turned up pleading to see the show of flags she and several other radical artists of the downtown New York scene were staging. After a brief look at her painting, Flag for the Moon
  
  Read more

• Mahler on Solo Trombone — Coming Up at Colorado Mahlerfest This May

  19-04-2024 05:01
  David Taylor and JH perform Schubert’s “Der Doppelganger” at the 2023 Brevard Music FestivalWriting in The American Scholar, Sudip Bose
  
  Read more

• What Does It Mean To “Own” Culture? (And Do We Have To?)

  19-04-2024 00:01
  
  Our music, films, books and photographs are increasingly accessed via digital platforms rather than stored on our shelves. Do these digital items really feel like “mine” in the same way that physical possessions do? And can they become as personally meaningful? – The Conversation
  
  Read more

Follow @ArtsUK1 on Twitter!