Jonathan Jones's Blog, page 161
May 12, 2016
Carwyn Jones was crying for Labour’s slow, horrible death | Jonathan Jones
Welsh assembly leaders do not go gentle into that good night, as Dylan Thomas very nearly wrote, but sob, sob against the dying of the light. The light may not yet be gone for Carwyn Jones, Labour leader in the assembly, but it has certainly dimmed, and suddenly: Cardiff officials appear uncertain how to resolve the deadlock that arose when the election of a new first minister produced a dead heat between Jones and Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood. If party talks fail, there may even have to be a new Welsh assembly election.
In the shock of his unexpected failure to be re-elected by the Welsh assembly as first minister (and in spite of Labour still being the biggest party), Jones was photographed showing an emotion most modern politicians would do anything rather than reveal. He put his head in his hands and wept. The civilised setting of the curved wooden desks, each with its silver computer terminal, inside Richard Rogers’ temple to modern democracy that is the Senedd building on Cardiff Bay, powerfully frames his anguish. Jones hunches down in his dark suit jacket as if trying to vanish behind his workstation. His hair, the same colour as the metal screen casing, is all we can see of his features, for his face is buried in a huge hankie. There is no ambiguity about what we are seeing. Jones is crying his eyes out.
We say we want politicians to be more honest and authentic, yet this display of pure feeling seemed shocking
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Antiques Roadshow's jug gaffe vexed me – if only it had been the UK show
The US spinoff’s mistaken valuation shows up what’s wrong with the BBC flagship. Where once the Beeb encouraged art for its own sake, here profit is king
I have to confess to sheer delight at the mistake made by a hapless Antiques Roadshow “expert”. Examining a comically primitivist pot brought in for valuation on the popular and venerable television show, appraiser Stephen L Fletcher got quite excited. He identified it as a daring early modernist work from the 19th century. He even discerned “a little bit of, like, Pablo Picasso going on here”.
Related: Antiques Roadshow expert mistakenly values school art project at $50,000
Related: David Attenborough at 90: a TV legend’s top 10 moments
Continue reading...May 11, 2016
So many causes, so many heroes – why defame them with a statue?
Monuments used to be the fetish of backward conservatives – now the left is at it too. We can admire the likes of Mary Seacole and Mary Wollstonecraft, but statues are a kitsch, ineffective way to remember them in the 21st century
It is the good cause that all politicians back: George Osborne recently allotted £240,000 from banking fines to pay for a statue of Mary Seacole next to the Thames. Campaigners announced Seacole will be unveiled as soon as June. The rival candidates for London mayor also found common ground in speaking up for the Crimean war heroine – Zac Goldsmith couldn’t even find it in him to brand her a Victorian terror sympathiser.
Related: Wanted, dead or alive: do statues always leave our hearts stone cold?
Related: Black History Month needs a rethink: it’s time to ditch the heroes | David Olusoga
Continue reading...May 10, 2016
It's obscene that Japan found Megumi Igarashi guilty for her vagina art
The eroticism of shunga suggests Japan is as libertarian as they come. But this new case won’t change a country continually swinging between sexual freedom and suppression
Every culture has its own complicated set of rules about sex. The fact that rules are made to be broken only adds to the fun. That is probably all we can conclude from the case of the Pussy Boat.
The artist Megumi Igarashi, known as Rokudenashiko, has been found guilty of obscenity in Japan for publishing data from which it is possible to 3D print a replica of her vagina, to raise funds for a kayak inspired by her genitalia. To any westerner who has ever looked at Japanese art, it seems a startling verdict.
Related: Is Nobuyoshi Araki's photography art or porn?
Related: The top 10 female nudes in art
Continue reading...May 9, 2016
George Shaw review – down, dirty and delightful in the woods
National Gallery, London
Shaw’s perversely beautiful paintings of detritus – and himself urinating against a tree – are the result of two years up close and personal with the old masters
The artist, the teenager and the serial killer have one thing in common – they are drawn to the woods. That spot on the edge of town where depravity and danger bloom like fungi is the theme of George Shaw’s luscious, funny, provocative new paintings. It is a place we all know, the bit of woodland where kids come to smoke and drink beer, where broken bikes and washing machines get dumped, where a lovely layer of autumn leaves is ruined by an empty prawn cocktail crisp packet.
Related: George Shaw, 49: ‘Every second, every ounce of time has to be accounted for’
Continue reading...May 6, 2016
Boys cry, Hatoum electrifies and dada sells out – the week in art
George Shaw unveils the fruits of his National Gallery residency, Ai Weiwei gets into the film business and we salute Marisol – all in your weekly art dispatch
George Shaw
Humbrol model aircraft paints take on the masters of oil painting as Turner nominee Shaw shows off the results of his National Gallery residency.
• National Gallery, London, 11 May–30 October.
Boys do cry, Hatoum electrifies and dada sells out – the week in art
George Shaw unveils the fruits of his National Gallery residency, Ai Weiwei gets into the film business and we salute Marisol – all in your weekly art dispatch
George Shaw
Humbrol model aircraft paints take on the masters of oil painting as Turner nominee Shaw shows off the results of his National Gallery residency.
• National Gallery, London, 11 May–30 October.
Boys do cry, Hatoum electrifies and dada sells out – the week in art
George Shaw unveils the fruits of his National Gallery residency, Ai Weiwei gets into the film business and we salute Marisol – all in your weekly art dispatch
George Shaw
Humbrol model aircraft paints take on the masters of oil painting as Turner nominee Shaw shows off the results of his National Gallery residency.
• National Gallery, London, 11 May–30 October.
Five of the best… new art shows
George Shaw | The British Landscape Tradition: From Gainsborough To Nash | Georg Baselitz | Ettore Spalletti | Dutch Flowers
George Shaw is a fascinating choice as a resident artist at the National Gallery, his scenes of poisoned landscapes now hanging alongside rural scenes by Gainsborough and Constable. Where they used oils and watercolour, Shaw uses Humbrol model aircraft paint. Yet his visions of rancid suburbia have a painterly richness that would have impressed the old masters.
Continue reading...Five of the best… new art shows
George Shaw | The British Landscape Tradition: From Gainsborough To Nash | Georg Baselitz | Ettore Spalletti | Dutch Flowers
George Shaw is a fascinating choice as a resident artist at the National Gallery, his scenes of poisoned landscapes now hanging alongside rural scenes by Gainsborough and Constable. Where they used oils and watercolour, Shaw uses Humbrol model aircraft paint. Yet his visions of rancid suburbia have a painterly richness that would have impressed the old masters.
Continue reading...Jonathan Jones's Blog
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