FAD Magazine

FAD Magazine covers contemporary art – News, Exhibitions and Interviews reported on from London

Navigating Venice

Autumn is a good time to visit the Venice Biennale, it being cooler and less crowded than earlier in the year.  Moreover, the 2022 edition is considered one of the best and the central exhibition, ‘The Milk of Dreams’, has been particularly widely praised. So here are my tips for the first time visitor:

An unusual documenta

Every five years the massive documenta show in Kassel, Germany, looks to anticipate the art world’s curatorial trends. documenta fifteen (to Sept 25) has been curated by Indonesian artist collective Lumbung inviting other collectives to issue invites.

Edvard Munch, Rock Star

I’ve seen a lot of Edvard Munch lately: in Oslo’s new 13-floor ‘Munch’ and even newer National Museum (both of which have versions of ‘The Scream’  and plenty else) and at the Courtauld in London. ‘Masterpieces from Bergen’ (to 3 Sept) has a comparatively modest but high standard 18 canvasses.

The Lazy Painter?

Painting sounds like a nice easy job: roll into the studio when your hangover allows, slosh a few colours around until you see something you like, then celebrate with another drink. Beats the project management required to make films; or the material sourcing, labour and heft of sculpture; let alone the disciplines of a real job…

Oslo, City of Sculpture

Edward Munch, very much a painter, is easily Norway’s most famous artist, and a new 13-floor building – ‘Munch’ as it is styled – was recently opened in his honour. Walking around Oslo, though, it would be easy to think that sculpture is the national preference: statues dot the streets and I visited four sculpture parks. For example:

Taking Sickert Seriously

Who was the greatest British painter of the 20th century? Plenty, I suppose would make a case for David Hockney, Lucien Freud, Howard Hodgkin and Stanley Spencer. I’d rank Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious, Ben Nicholson, Patrick Caulfield and Frank Auerbach higher, but I suspect few would share my view. Perhaps that leaves the most plausible candidates as Francis Bacon, Bridget Riley and Walter Sickert – and Sickert (1860-1942) gets by far the least attention these days.

So This Is Permanent

It’s easy to find that, because there’s a time limit on changing exhibitions, you concentrate on those becasue you might miss them and never quite get round to looking at institutions’ permanent holdings, deep in the memory as they may be.  So on visiting major new shows recently, I’ve also thought: let’s take a ride out, see what we can find…

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