REVIEW David Hockney RA: 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life – ‘We can feel Hockney’s deafness’
1 July 2016 • Syndicate
Royal Academy, London
The artist’s humorous portraits, all with the same yellow chair, are a superheated pageant of fashion and pattern
Tag: Reviews
REVIEW: Cindy Sherman – high-society selfies by quintessential postmodernist
31 May 2016 • Syndicate
The grotesqueness of haute couture and high society come alive in the self-portraits of one the most influential photo artists of the late 20th century
Glasgow rules the waves
11 April 2016 • Mark Westall
From skateboarding clams and swimsuit performance art to QE3’s maiden voyage, Sarah McCrory’s Glasgow International 2016 festival programme is awash with freewheeling energy, but some big shows sink under their own weight
Revolution in the Making review – unspooling an alternative art history
23 March 2016 • Syndicate
Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, Los Angeles
In its enormous new LA space, the commercial gallery has staged an inaugural exhibition comprised solely of sculptures by female artists, making a case that the classtic story of art after modernism is sexist and incomplete
Hieronymus Bosch – a heavenly host of delights on the road to hell
15 February 2016 • Mark Westall
Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch, Netherlands
An astonishing homecoming for this madly inventive artist sets the grotesque against a deep but compassionate melancholy that burns into your soul
REVIEW: Art Basel Miami Beach – art and commerce collide by the sea
6 December 2015 • Mark Westall
It’s the western hemisphere’s biggest and most ostentatious art fair, and if you can get past the bling there are gems to be seen, many hailing from Latin America
Michael Craig-Martin review – a malevolent graveyard of tech
26 November 2015 • Mark Westall
Serpentine gallery, London
Whether he’s painting tape cassettes, Xbox controllers or iPhones, Craig-Martin’s odd, lurid objects don’t just show us the days we’ve lost – they glower back at us
Gilbert and George Banners review – art as undeniable as a punch in the face
26 November 2015 • Mark Westall
White Cube, London
For their eight-millionth exhibition, the naughty boys of art are showing Banners that could be slight and trite – but actually turn out to be nasty prophecies for our dreadful age
REVIEW: Ann Veronica Janssens – the artistic equivalent of an isolation tank
18 October 2015 • Mark Westall
Wellcome Collection, London
States of Mind is a fun installation of coloured mist that feels like swimming through a painting by Monet – but it is light entertainment, nothing more
REVIEW: Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery is a grown-up gem that shows he’s sobered with age
8 October 2015 • Mark Westall
Caruso St John architects have conjured an immaculate new home for the art prankster’s collection in an unlikely south London setting – and there’s not a diamond skull or formaldehyde animal in sight
Anthony Caro in Yorkshire review – sculpture that can take your breath away
20 July 2015 • Mark Westall
His monumental forms make you dance, his table-top works are in drag – and his shapes are so simple you can’t believe he dared. As a vast two-site retrospective proves, Caro’s best work remains audacious, alluring and disarming
What’s Wrong With Art: Bad Reviews Are Bad For Business
22 June 2015 • Tabish Khan
There are just too many good reviews
REVIEW: Leading your brain into a crazy pirouette: Bridget Riley at the De La Warr Pavilion
12 June 2015 • Mark Westall
A Bexhill-on-Sea retrospective of mind-bending curve paintings shows why Riley is Britain’s most significant modern artist
REVIEW: Agnes Martin – beauty and steeliness at Tate Modern
8 June 2015 • Mark Westall
Tate Modern, London
This major Agnes Martin retrospective contains some gems, but overemphasis on her less original work disguises her worth
REVIEW: Julian Opie’s portraits in motion: this is what genius looks like –
7 June 2015 • Staff
He paints with simple black lines and primary colours, and most of his characters don’t even have faces. Yet Julian Opie captures our world in stunning detail
REVIEW: 56th Venice Biennale – more of a glum trudge than an exhilarating adventure
10 May 2015 • Staff
There’s an awful lot of fretting about the state of the world in the Biennale’s 88 national pavilions, but little power, wit or bravado
Nuts, bolts and art: the man who turned a hardware store into hard cash
29 April 2015 • Mark Westall
Theaster Gates wants to make the world a better place, so he transforms everyday objects – from old basketball courts to the entire contents of the shop he just bought – into art to raise funds for his community projects in rundown Chicago
REVIEW: Deutsche Börse 2015 – shadowy burqas v epic towerblocks
19 April 2015 • Staff
Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse spent six years photographing every door and window of a 54-storey tower in Johannesburg, while Viviane Sassen proves herself a sculptor of light. Set beside heartbreaking portraits of LGBTI South Africans and Russians letting loose on the beach, this year’s shortlist is full of intrigue
REVIEW: Y.Z Kami: Paintings – making visible the invisible
12 April 2015 • Staff
Gagosian Gallery, London
The Iranian artist strives to depict the inner lives of his subjects in portraits that are as modest as they are monumental
REVIEW: Richard Diebenkorn – colour and line under a Californian sun
23 March 2015 • Mark Westall
Sackler Wing, Royal Academy, London
Richard Diebenkorn’s figures may have lacked psychological depth, but his Ocean Park paintings are still endlessly involving, where fields of colour pull you to the horizon
REVIEW: Bruce Nauman – an electrifying carousel of ideas
20 March 2015 • Mark Westall
The artist’s new Paris show combines works that play on adult fears with childlike instructions and repetitive movement – a compelling lesson for young and old alike
REVIEW: Leon Golub: Bite your Tongue – so terrific, the paintings roar off the walls
4 March 2015 • Mark Westall
Serpentine gallery, London
Late Chicago-born artist has never had the retrospective he deserves in US – perhaps galleries are afraid, for his work is as shocking as it is powerful