Paul's Art Stuff Archives

On the Up in St Leonards

I grew up in St Leonards-on-Sea, the 19th century addition to Hastings. The two towns suffered a 50 year decline… Read More

Paul's Art Stuff

Liv Fontaine: The Performance of Drawing

Performance art had an increasingly high pre-pandemic profile, but the curtailment of live events affected that – and even in… Read More

Art Meets Poetry

Poetry was good in lockdown, being better suited to the screen than most literature or art. That makes it timely that two ambitious London shows currently combine art with poetry

Outposts of Art

I visited three places not so typically associated with art last weekend: Beckenham, Penge and Reading. But all had their points:

Art, Life and Everything

In ‘Art, Life and Everything’, Julie Umerle chronicles her life as an artist from 1978-2010. She hasn’t had an easy ride – for example, she’s never been represented by a mainstream gallery – but…

Plenty of shows bring together paintings of figures and objects in unusual contexts or brought into unexpected conjunctions: the words ‘uncanny’ and ‘enigmatic’, ‘disturbing’ and ‘surreal’ are likely to be invoked. But, even if the paintings are good, you need more to turn such a display into a compelling whole. Two current exhibitions demonstrate how:

LONDON GALLERY WEEKEND

The first London Gallery Weekend (4-6 June) felt a very positive initiative, conveniently revealing the scale of London’s commercial art… Read More

Dandelions

I wait years for a really good dandelion painting to come along, then – on the same day – see… Read More

SEMI-LOCKED-DOWN VIEWING

There’s a surfeit of new things to see just now, as pretty much every commercial gallery in London – and… Read More

The Great Painter-Sculptors

Skarstedt’s fascinating new exhibition Painter / Sculptor brings together a sculpture and a painting by nine artists who, says the… Read More

NEWS

Spring Growth

No doubt some galleries will close, but to counter that there are some new developments. Sticking with the Mayfair zone:

The Artists Themselves

There’s something enticing about knowing what artists look like, even though it isn’t usually relevant to the work. Performance artists… Read More

Around the World with Ed van der Elsken

Who’s the most important Dutch photographer of the 20th century? I’m a fan of the largely street-based work of Ed van der Elsken (1925-90).

Paul's Art Stuff

Water Everywhere

Kim Tschang-Yeul: ‘Waterdrops’, 1979 ‘If I were called in / To construct a religion’, wrote Philip Larkin, ‘I should make… Read More

Not Quite in Winnipeg

Considering it’s fairly small (750,000) a lot of interesting work is made by artists in or from Winnipeg in Canada –

Being an Octopus

What is it like to be an octopus? Would that be a better model for how an AI might be regarded as ‘intelligent’ than assessing how its responses differ from the human? And what would that mean for the way people look at the world?

Virtually There

Normally, I see virtually everything. Now I see everything virtually. But it’s not all bad. Not surprisingly, the big galleries have upped their game: see for example….

Exclusive Artist Interview: Arturo the Cat

In a playful yet pointed counter to the human-centric view of the world, London-based Italian artist Ludovica Gioscia collaborates with her cat, Arturo. I was pleased to obtain an exclusive interview with him just as they opened a major show at Baert Gallery in Los Angeles.