“Within this thicket there lurks a name...” Ian Hamilton Finlay
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Death. It’s the most final of finalities, its presence so concrete no amount of good intent can blow it away. However diligently the Royal Academy tries to present Richard Dadd as an intriguing Victorian fairy painter, and that’s it, the fact that he murdered his father, believing him to be the Devil, cannot be wished off. […] The post The surrealist genius who slit his father’s throat with a…
Ana Mendieta has two kinds of fame. One is as a pioneering feminist artist of the 1970s whose poetic body art predicted many paths. The other is as the wife of the minimalist sculptor Carl Andre, the creator of the infamous Tate “bricks”, who may or may not have pushed her from a 34th-floor balcony […] The post We can’t ignore Ana Mendieta’s mysterious death –– or her enthralling art appeared…
Good or bad? That’s the question that buzzes round my head like a wasp at a barbecue whenever I encounter the work of John Currin. You swat it away, you bash it with a fork, but still it keeps returning. Is this good art or bad? To an obvious extent, the answer depends on your […] The post Women hate this artist’s boob obsession — men aren’t so sure appeared first on Waldemar Januszczak .
Japan is so photogenic it’s no surprise everyone wants to photograph it. I shudder to think how many snaps there are out there of Mount Fuji hovering on the horizon or that stripy Ginza crossing where everyone rushes over at once or the few remaining geishas in Kyoto. That Japan, the foreigner’s Japan, may even […] The post No cherry blossom here — women show a different side of Japan appeared…
One of the stylistic rules we have here is that we are discouraged from using the word “icon”. It’s used too casually these days, goes the thinking, too grandly, too glibly, too often. All of which is true. But since Tate Modern has called its Frida Kahlo show The Making of an Icon it cannot, in this […] The post Frida Kahlo is a genius — but she unleashed a monster appeared first on Waldemar…
There’s a sense with some artists that their careers fell between the cracks. They lived in times of momentous change, but where they fit into that change is unclear. Toulouse-Lautrec was such an artist. Edvard Munch another. And so, certainly, was James Abbott McNeill Whistler. On every front, Whistler (1834-1903) feels interstitial. His dates correspond […] The post Whistler — the cocky…
Ai Weiwei doesn’t recognise me. But I recognise him instantly. He’s fuller round the tummy and the snows have fallen on his head, but the big giveaway is the trademark calm he exudes. A volcano could erupt at his feet, Chairman Mao could walk into the room and announce “I’m back!”, and China’s most celebrated […] The post Ai Weiwei: ‘Exile makes you constantly feel you’re an outsider’ appeared…
Idon’t know as much about Freudian meanings as Anish Kapoor. He’s spent several decades being psychoanalysed, whereas I read Sigmund Freud’s Civilisation and Its Discontents many moons ago. But I have spent enough time in the art world to have picked up some basics. So I know that we have ids and we have egos, and that […] The post Mum, Anish Kapoor is fiddling with my brain appeared first on…
There have been many dewy-eyed tributes to David Hockney since his passing on Thursday. Many of us have been moistly remembering the sheer pleasure of spending time with Britain’s most popular artist. The cheeky comments, the naughty stories, the clever insights. I can hear him in my ears right now, his singalong Yorkshire brogue time-stamped […] The post David Hockney: behind the sunny Yorkshire…
Warning: the following review will make most sense to those readers who were once hippies. Pink Floyd fans may enjoy some parts. And anyone who has read Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse or Lord of the Rings. Somewhere in the galaxy there is a planet inhabited by crazy woodcutters who enjoy puzzling the bejesus out of the other […] The post MC Escher, the wizard of weirdness who inspired Pink Floyd —…