1:54 – Real Life Art from Africa
10 October 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
You could say that 1:54 is the Frieze fair this week – at any rate it’s the only real life fair in the city during ‘Frieze week’. So it seems only fair to pay it attention.
Paul’s Art Stuff
Most days Art Critic Paul Carey-Kent spends hours on the train, traveling between his home in Southampton and his day job in London. Could he, we asked, jot down whatever came into his head?
Do’s and Don’ts of Instagram
7 October 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
You can’t put everything on the increasingly central art medium of Instagram, as it’s censored. Specifically, any photographic image of genitals, naked buttocks or bare female breasts are out. The fact that it’s art isn’t held to make any difference, which has caused some annoyance.
Small was Splendid: Tintype 2010-20
29 September 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
I was sorry to hear that the small but splendid Tintype Gallery is sailing into the sunset.
Jacqueline Poncelet’s Multiplicities
23 September 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
The New Art Centre in Wiltshire combines the ideal socially distanced art experience – sculpture in the landscape – with three indoor galleries.
A Big Hand for Baselitz
16 September 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
The past few years have tended to see Georg Baselitz in fine, adventurous form, at least in the studio (less so in the interview room, where his ludicrous generalisations about female painters have tended to put people off). And you have to hand it to him here: well into his ninth decade, Baselitz has come up with a series of works quite unlike anything he has done before – a whole show of hands, many of them monumental
This Year’s Cubism
6 September 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
107 artists have made works in a Perspex cube for the third edition of Cure3, which provides the triple good of keenly-priced chances to obtain interesting art in a good cause – The Cure Parkinson’s Trust, which has described sufferers as feeling ‘boxed in’.
London Grads Now
3 September 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
It’s obvious enough that this year’s graduates have missed out on the traditional benefits of a degree show. But the Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery has teamed up with the Saatchi Gallery to do something about it by facilitating students to curate a ‘best of ‘ selection through an open call to all those graduating this year.
Why visit the Eden Project?
26 August 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
I guess no one visits the Eden Project in Cornwall to look at art: to enjoy the plant life, take in the biomes and reflect on environmental sustainability, yes; to zip across the half-mile SkyWire, maybe. But there is an art trail, along with a map identifying sixteen works to see, and I followed it last week.
Parasol unit 2004-2020
19 August 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
It did mean that the end of Parasol unit at Wharf Road programme in London came rather unnoticed, but a handsome tome* now commemorates more than 50 major exhibitions held over the sixteen years 2004-20.
Shane Bradford’s Authentic Editions
12 August 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
Another, proposed as the leitmotif of the new edition-driven project ‘Assembly Line’ by Shane Bradford, is to use the fact of multiplicity as the inherent driver of editioned art.
Ceramic Paintings
5 August 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
The ceramic painting seems to be a form on the rise. Ceramics have been a trend for some years now, triggered perhaps by a desire for the visibly hand-made in the era of outsourced and / or digital production.
Virtual with Virtue – 3 more artists to see IRL
22 July 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
I have also been newly interested in artists now on my list of ‘see IRL when you get the chance’. Such as these three
Virtual with Virtue- 3 artists to see IRL
15 July 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
Three months of lockdown… that’s a lot of online art. It’s easiest, for sure, to appreciate the virtual offerings of artists whose work you have already seen ‘for real’. But I have also been newly interested in artists now on my list of ‘see IRL when you get the chance’. Such as these three…
Surprises from Art UK
1 July 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
Art UK is the online home for every public art collection in the UK, recently represented to make 250,000 works easily searchable with a facility to curate your own show. Faced with so many options, I took took the simple approach of looking for less usual examples from some of my favourite C20th artists.
Trouble Online at Art Basel
21 June 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
Art Basel’s online viewing rooms can be visited until 26 June. There is plenty of trouble in the world for that art to reflect: not just the virus, the economy, wars, terrorism and global warming but also bad attitudes. Here’s my selection of work which addresses the anti-discriminatory agenda so effectively foregrounded by ‘Me Too’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’…
3 from The #artistsupportpledge
17 June 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
Perhaps the most heartening coronavirus development in art has been the development of the Artist Support Pledge, whereby works are offered for sale for up to £200, and when an artist sells £1,000-worth they pledge to spend £200 supporting another artist. Over 250,000 works have now been posted on Instagram at #artistsupportpledge, generating over £20m! Naturally, quality is variable at that quantity, but it is easy enough to access artists you like through their own Instagram accounts. I posted some examples in my 22 April column. Here are three more who appealed to me…
The Way Mark Manders Thinks
10 June 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
Mark Manders makes striking work which originates in a unique way of thinking. Antwerp’s Zeno X Gallery is currently showing two typical pieces in the online version of Art Brussels.
Abstract Rainbows
3 June 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
Here are three rainbow-channelling works which I like: superficially similar concatenations of rectangular blocks which have many underlying differences.
On Kawara on 27 May
27 May 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
Everyone knows the ‘date paintings’ of On Kawara (1933-2014), collectively known as ‘Today’. 0r do they? Can you answer the following questions?
Creative on Instagram
20 May 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
Instagram has become the default means for artists to present themselves online. Mostly, that’s to show new work, how it comes about, inspirations, recommendations – all of which can be interesting. But some go further: their Instagram account becomes, in effect, the platform for creating new work, perhaps at a slant from the work for which they’re best known. Here are four artists whose posts I look forward to from that less usual angle.
What are artists doing during lockdown?
12 May 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
What are artists doing during lockdown? Here are some further examples, following on from last week.
What are artists doing during lockdown?
6 May 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
What are artists doing during lockdown? This week and next I will feature work made in last couple of months which reflect some of those factors.
Mel Bochner, Plain as the Nose on Your Face
29 April 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
Lockdowns have been in place long enough by now that galleries have had time to home their digital content beyond simply putting up what would have been in the gallery. Simon Lee’s Mel Bochner viewing room, for example, gives us various texts, a film and a discussion with the New York based artist which, alongside the images, provides a comprehensive overview of his practice (to 17th May)
#artistsupportpledge Artists in Lockdown
22 April 2020 • Paul Carey-Kent
The scheme initiated by Sussex-based painter Matthew Burrows has proved a roaring success: over 70,000 works have been posted for sale via Instagram at #artistsupportpledge, and business has been brisk.