A Century of the Artist’s Studio. Glimpses of the “coalface” at latest Whitechapel Gallery exhibition
By James Brewer
Highly controlled chaos: that was how the painter Francis Bacon, known for his distorted and nightmarish figurations of man and animal on the canvas, viewed his studio. Amid seeming disorganisation, the implication is: “It might look a mess, but I know I can find anything I want.” It is a natural milieu for artists with their sheaves of brushes, panoply of...
The Last Shipwreck. By Cecily Brown.
At Whitechapel Gallery, Radical Figures headlines five new exhibitions
By James Brewer
Contemporary artists are elated that painting is back in style. Yes, full-blown painting!
To the dismay of some in artistic circles, the application of paint to canvas was “pronounced dead” in the 1980s, experimentation in other sometimes wild perceptions having taken hold in colleges and institutions in the previous decade.
Now London’s Whitechapel Gallery, itself a crucible...
Anna Maria Maiolino.
Anna Maria Maiolino: Making Love Revolutionary. Whitechapel Gallery retrospective
By James Brewer
Crossing the Atlantic in the early 1950s on a passengership that rolled and pitched unnervingly was a daunting experience for a 12-year-old girl who with her mother and sister were seeking to put behind them the poverty of their life in rural Italy.
The turbulent voyage to Venezuela affected Anna Maria Maiolino to this day, heightening her sensitivity to the fate of all migrants.
She...
Phoenix Will Rise by Rana Begum and Marina Tabassum Architects.
Is This Tomorrow? Visions of the future by architects and artists at Whitechapel Gallery
By James Brewer
A decade after the end of World War II, London was making its lopsided recovery. The City and its institutions – the stock exchange, banks, Lloyd’s insurance market – had revived, but a short walk away the neighbouring, heavily working-class community was struggling, the borough still pockmarked from air raids on the docks and...
http://www.allaboutshipping.co.uk/2019/02/22/is-this-tomorrow/