Jonathan Jones's Blog, page 15
September 13, 2024
Van Gogh dazzles, the Fourth Plinth beckons and Norwich nabs some narcs – the week in art
Vincent scores exhibition of the year, Teresa Margolles prepares for Trafalgar Square, Hew Locke unpicks the royals and Tracey Emin opens her heart – all in your weekly dispatch
Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers
Dazzling, disorientating and beautiful – this is the exhibition of the year and will make you fall in love with Van Gogh as if for the very first time.
• National Gallery, London, from 14 September until 19 January
September 10, 2024
Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers review – a riveting rollercoaster ride from Arles to the stars
Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers, National Gallery, London
This daring, dazzling exhibition gives us a thrilling sense of the artist’s transfiguring genius, showing how he remade the world around him with beauty, hope and searing colour
Neither The Poet nor The Lover, whose portraits open the this heart-stopping Van Gogh exhibition, were quite what they seem. The Lover’s eyes gazes dreamily from a face of blue-green tints, wearing a red cap flaming against an emerald sky, in which a gold moon and star twinkle. In reality, he was an army officer called Paul-Eugène Milliet, whose affairs were less ethereal than the painting suggests. “He has all the Arles women he wants,” wrote Van Gogh enviously. The Poet’s face, meanwhile, is anxious and gaunt, its ugliness badly hidden by a thin beard, as the night around him bursts into starshine. He was a Belgian painter called Eugène Boch whose work Van Gogh thought so-so. But beggars can’t be choosers. They were among the few friends Van Gogh had in Arles, after he arrived in February 1888 to renew himself.
Why does this exhibition start with these two paintings, instead of the blossoming trees or golden fields he painted that spring? The answer lies in the portraits’ very lack of prosaic fact. Van Gogh is an artist we’re still catching up with. We all know his turbulent story – that less than a year after arriving in Arles, he would cut off his ear, and be narrowly saved from bleeding to death – but we’re not so clear what made his art so extraordinary. Wasn’t he just an especially intense observer of sunflowers?
Continue reading...September 6, 2024
Monuments to motherhood, cinematic dreams and a ‘wild beast’ – the week in art
Hannah Perry takes a spectacular approach, John Stezaker offers reality-bending works and classicist André Derain designs for theatre – all in your weekly dispatch
Hannah Perry: Manual Labour
A spectacular multimedia approach goes with introspective themes as Perry explores motherhood, class and gender.
• Baltic, Gateshead, until 16 March
Surréalisme review – monstrous, deviant, glorious fun as the movement hits 100
Centre Pompidou, Paris
From Ernst to Dalí, from Maar to De Chirico, this is a dazzling riot of creativity, celebrating the artistic potential of the unconscious – and shoes
Poignancy is not a word we associate with surrealism, but you feel it when you walk down a corridor of blown-up photobooth pictures and enter the Pompidou’s blockbuster marking the movement’s 100th birthday. Everybody was so young when the first surrealist manifesto was published in October 1924: was it really a century ago? Painter Yves Tanguy sports a punk hairstyle as he grimaces for the automatic camera; Marie-Berthe Aurenche, another painter, whips her hair up into chaos; Salvador Dalí closes his eyes as if asleep.
These people are funny and having fun. Of all the modernist art movements, it was the surrealists who were best at enjoying their revolution. In the Pompidou’s perfectly judged exhibition, that pleasure shines through as you meet these artists, all dead now, not so much as giants of art history as extremely amusing companions.
Continue reading...August 30, 2024
Van Gogh v the ’gram, word sculptures and Japanese ceramics – the week in art
The great masters’ Instagrammable portraits, Ian Hamilton Friday’s poetic visions, the folk craft of Mingei and more – all in your weekly dispatch
Art of the Selfie
Self-portraits by the likes of Rembrandt and Van Gogh, seen alongside the 21st-century selfie.
• National Museum, Cardiff, until 26 January
August 28, 2024
From Van Gogh to Le Va, Rego to the Renaissance: the best exhibitions for autumn 2024
From this year’s Turner prize and pioneering scatter art to Monet’s London and Goya’s surreal visions – there’s something for all art lovers
Continue reading...August 23, 2024
Anish Kapoor at prayer and a giant pumpkin in the park – the week in art
A master of colour fills Liverpool Cathedral and Yayoi Kusama lands outdoors – all in your weekly dispatch
Anish Kapoor
The intense colours and spatial paradoxes of Kapoor’s art find a fitting home in the grand gothic spaces of Liverpool Cathedral.
• Liverpool Cathedral until 15 September
August 16, 2024
Zooming in on nature, sounding out a stone and sculpting space – the week in art
What science learns from photography, a painterly look at an ancient boulder and Noémie Goudal’s ‘contours of certainty’ – all in your weekly dispatch
Nature in Focus
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of its wildlife photographer of the year competition, the Natural History Museum takes a look at how photography enhances our knowledge of nature.
• Natural History Museum, London, until 19 July 2025
August 14, 2024
Kissing coppers to rutting rhinos: Banksy’s artworks – ranked!
The quality of the enigmatic street artist’s murals veers wildly: from self-satisfied satirical statements to truly funny political provocations. Our critic rates his pieces, from worst to best
Banksy has become famous for being famous, which is quite an achievement considering we are not certain who he is. Like all famous artists, he is often reduced to a cash value – making his artworks as nickable as they are memetic. The animals Banksy has been painting in unlikely London sites this summer are causing a now-familiar surge of adulation and hubbub. Yet behind his (anti)celebrity cult, Banksy is an artist whose work veers wildly in quality. At his best he’s a satirical agent provocateur with few rivals. At worst he’s vacantly sentimental or ideologically crass, often both at the same time. So which Banksys are worth making a fuss over and which deserve to be left in a skip?
Continue reading...August 9, 2024
Ofili stands out in Edinburgh, print legends and money in the Banksy – the week in art
A bustling art festival rivals the fringe, a survey of star printmakers, and an exploration of wealth and artistry – all in your weekly dispatch
Edinburgh art festival
A staggering range of art for Edinburgh’s festival season, with great shows by Ibrahim Mahama and Chris Ofili standing out, while Hayley Barker and Sir John Lavery provide pastoral escape.
• Various venues, Edinburgh, 9-25 August
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