FOCUS Art Fair London opens at Saatchi Gallery.
10 October 2024 • daniel barnes
It’s Frieze Week – the London artworld’s celebration of blue-chip bling – and as always the real attractions are the… Read More
Author: daniel barnes
I am a writer teacher and curator with an interest in contemporary British art and popular culture. In the past, I have written for Aesthetica, Winq and this is tomorrow, as well as having given lectures at universities and galleries nationwide, not to mention my stint as philosopher in residence on the Butcher's Apron Radio Show. These days, I divide my time between teaching English in an FE college and writing a book about Damien Hirst, as well as writing for FAD. My first book, The Value Industry, which explores the relationship between art and money, is available now from amazon.
Things Don’t Change as You Expect. Value and Ideas #108
2 September 2024 • daniel barnes
It often happens that when we think of art we think of it as discrete objects: paintings on canvas or… Read More
The Boy Who Made Too Much #Value and Ideas 107
18 July 2024 • daniel barnes
Inigo Philbrick, darling of the London artworld and fraudster extraordinaire, has something to teach us about how we deal with art.
They Don’t Make Them Like That Anymore. Value and Ideas #106
29 May 2024 • daniel barnes
On the first day of the ‘Sensation’ exhibition, Marcus Harvey’s Myra (1995) was attacked twice: first with eggs, second with ink.
Charlie Stein: Virtually Yours – Irresistible Digital Gloop
14 October 2023 • daniel barnes
Dripping, posing, pleading, vacantly staring into and through the viewer, the figures in Charlie Stein’s paintings are at once grotesque and hyperreal reflections of our fragile selves, splintered and strewn across the airwaves of social media, and yet all neatly packaged up.
So, Here’s the Sea, but Where are the Sharks?
21 July 2023 • daniel barnes
Where the Land Meets the Sea. On the surface, everything is as it should be: Damien is collaborating with Heni again; an auction house is the venue for a sell-out show;
A Space of Possibility and Drama
17 July 2023 • daniel barnes
It would have been easy in recent years to have given in to the twenty-first century’s special brand of polarising hysteria when it comes to landscape painting.
Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons REVIEW
6 March 2023 • daniel barnes
Taking cues from science fiction, esoteric clubs, film, literature and the deepest recesses of human invention, Nelson chips away at our sense of what it is to inhabit space.
Peter Doig at the Courtauld Gallery #REVIEW
14 February 2023 • daniel barnes
In a world obsessed with soundbites and headlines, Peter Doig’s secondary market prices are the stuff of art market legend, which is likely more a curse than a blessing for Doig, who is the first living artist to exhibit at the Courtauld Gallery since its 2021 renovation.
Kenneth Noland: Stripes/ Plaids/ Shapes
26 January 2023 • daniel barnes
As one of the leading figures of post-war abstract painting, Kenneth Noland’s commitment to line and colour is unparalleled.
The most interesting thing is the thing that is not there, the thing that just evades scrutiny, the thing that hangs like cobwebs in the background
27 June 2022 • daniel barnes
Cornelia Parker’s work is all about that liminal thing and, in this show at Tate Britain, it looms large. Indeed, one quickly forms the impression that she – intentionally or otherwise – is making the art that this fractured, restless world deserves.
Damien Hirst: Natural History.
13 April 2022 • daniel barnes
Back in 1991, when Damien Hirst began showing his Natural History works, the Daily Star ran the headline “£50,000 for fish without chips”.
White Gold. Value and Ideas #105
14 January 2022 • daniel barnes
Do you not feel that sometimes we become so swept up with the hidden meanings of art or with the artist’s identity that we forget to savour the sensation of art itself?
Review: Damien Hirst: Relics and Fly Paintings.
17 July 2021 • daniel barnes
Brooding, silent, inert, the works in this exhibition are far beyond death, having passed through rigor mortis, decomposition and mumification… Read More
The New Old Normal Value and Ideas #104
15 July 2021 • daniel barnes
It was on a warm August morning back in 2014, sitting in a curry house in a side street off Brick Lane, when Gilbert told me he had been at Wembley for the 1966 World Cup Final.
More than Just Seeing Value and Ideas #103
24 May 2021 • daniel barnes
Art is something we experience, and not just something we see. And learning this lesson is crucial if we are to avoid the very intellectual fabric of art being eroded and lambasted by travesties such as Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience, which plays into the hands of populism but does egregious harm to the integrity of the experience art.
Nothing Lasts Forever Value and Ideas #102
1 April 2021 • daniel barnes
$69.3 million is a lot of money to spend on something you cannot touch, that does not occupy space and that cannot even be seen without flicking a switch. Now the dust has settled on Beeple’s epic auction debut, it is time to soberly consider whether it is worth it. Spoiler – it probably is! We are, after all, living in the future.
Value and Ideas #101 Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.
22 February 2021 • daniel barnes
It’s been a while, but the column about the value of art is back. I wrote the first 100 instalments… Read More
PREVIEW: Benedict Redgrove: Everything & Nothing
11 April 2016 • daniel barnes
Display Gallery is to present a series of expressionist cloudscapes by photographer Benedict Redgrove.
INTERVIEW: Hayden Kays: Overdrawn and On the Money
29 March 2016 • daniel barnes
Young British artist Hayden Kays returns this spring with a new body of work.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #100: Why Damien Makes Such Good Art
18 December 2015 • daniel barnes
Readers of this column will have noticed that I am the only person in the world who actually likes Damien Hirst despite not making any money from him.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #99: Gazing into the Abyss
11 December 2015 • daniel barnes
In his latest exhibition, Gazing Ball Paintings, at Gagosian New York, Koons oversteps the mark of decency and demonstrates that the most horrifying thing about his art is its sincerity.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #98: Francis Bacon’s Pound of Flesh
4 December 2015 • daniel barnes
On the 24th anniversary of Francis Bacon’s death, 28th April 2016, the artist’s first definitive catalogue raisonne will be published, including over 100 previously unseen works and missing 4 that remain untraceable.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #97: Dirty Words and Wholesome Ideas
27 November 2015 • daniel barnes
If you think about it, you’ll realise you’ve had a funny feeling too. London has felt incomplete, bereft as if part of the furniture is missing but you cannot quite put your finger on what it is or where it has gone.