Jonathan Jones's Blog, page 194
May 8, 2015
David Cameron’s tweeted kiss tells the story of the night | Jonathan Jones
So here he is, the winner – a born winner after all. Eton really does turn them out. Looking genuinely relieved and ecstatic, David Cameron squashes his face against Sam Cam’s cheek, as she grins at the prospect of five years of proper, evil Tory power. Both seem aware of the need not to ruin their smart clothes as they cuddle deliriously – and forget the soft-Tory tie-less look: it’s time to put on the blue tie and take out the whips and handcuffs. Maggie’s boys are back in town. Cameron in this photograph is drinking the champagne of true blue victory. It’s big sex later, Samantha.
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May 6, 2015
Five more years of the Conservatives will reduce the arts to a national joke
Labour and the SNP would “tear our nation apart”, warns former Conservative prime minister John Major in the last hours of the 2015 General Election campaign. It’s typical of Tory rhetoric about the “chaos” an Ed Miliband victory might bring.
But the chaos is already here, in microcosm. There is a small part of Britain that has turned into a reenactment of the 1970s, with nothing working and people treated like dirt.
Continue reading...May 5, 2015
Kim Kardashian’s Selfish: a nail in the coffin for artistic photography?
The selfie queen has turned her portraits into a book. It’s a slap in the face for anyone who ever pointed a camera in hope of being the new Henri Cartier-Bresson
Photography books are traditionally the preserve of the pretentious. There is something insufferably grand about putting an expensive book of supposedly artistic photographs on your coffee table when photos are all around us, all the time, everywhere – who needs to make a cultural fetish of them and set some apart in a big book, between hard covers?
Kim Kardashian has come not to praise the photography book, but to bury it. Her new book, Selfish, is the ultimate slap in the face for anyone who ever pointed a camera with high hopes of being the new Henri Cartier-Bresson or Don McCullin and getting their sensitive snaps published in a moving monograph called The Gangs of Leeds, perhaps, or The Last Fish and Chip Shop.
Continue reading...Out of the frame: artist Gordon Shrigley abandons dream of being an MP
As the election looms, the arty candidate for Hackney South and Shoreditch has thrown in the towel, sneering at the cynicism of politicians. But is he missing the point?
As the political parties make their final push for the general election while already testing out arguments for who can form a government in the anticipated hung parliament, at least one candidate has the honesty to throw in the towel.
Artist Gordon Shrigley has not pulled out of the ballot in Hackney South and Shoreditch where he is (genuinely) standing for Parliament on Thursday, but he has effectively admitted defeat with the final poster of his conceptual artwork of a campaign.
Related: Al Murray, the Pub Landlord: ‘I have no worries about polling 1%’
Continue reading...May 4, 2015
The Edstone: what the election’s worst work of art tells us about British politics | Jonathan Jones
A few years ago archaeologists came up with a striking theory about Stonehenge. Drawing on comparisons with the culture of Madagascar, they speculated that Britain’s famous stone circle once had a symbolic relationship with nearby, recently discovered prehistoric wooden structures. Woodhenges were living places while Stonehenge was the place of the dead, goes the theory. When living wood turns symbolically to stone, it dies – it is frozen in immortal silence.
This interpretation of Stonehenge speaks to our association of stone with stillness, coldness, and the inorganic – in short, with death. And that in turn helps explain why Ed Miliband’s unveiling of a tall limestone plinth inscribed with six unbreakable election vows has been so widely mocked and excoriated.
Related: Ed Miliband's carved pledges could sink like a stone
And to think the Tories call Miliband a Marxist. All that is solid melts into air – that’s the truest thing Marx said
Continue reading...A hung parliament: bad for politics, but cultural gold
Our current political quagmire could be the greatest thing for British culture since the 1970s – a magnificent epoch in art
We may be on the edge of political chaos. The prospect of a hung parliament and weeks of negotiation to launch another coalition or minority government confronts Britain with a harsh truth. The age of national confidence and strong governments – of left, right or centre – is over. We are back in the ungovernable quagmire that was Britain in the 1970s.
But will it really be so bad?
Continue reading...May 1, 2015
Death-row paintings and anti-gentrification postcards – the week in art
Convicted smuggler Myuran Sukumaran’s artworks howl from the abyss, as postcards reveal how London life went sour. Plus election posters get a brilliant art school remix and Jackson Pollock’s secret foodie life – all in your weekly dispatch
Landscape photographs by a serious and thought-provoking artist.
• Marian Goodman Gallery, London W1F, until 6 June.
April 30, 2015
Clandon Park fire: is a marble marvel lost forever?
One of Britain’s most splendid architectural spaces, a marble hall inspired by the Italian genius Palladio, may have been destroyed by fire. It’s not just a posh heritage issue – we should all care
One of the most striking architectural spaces in Britain is a completely cubic hall that glistens with white marble and is intricately enlivened by pilasters, pediments, grand doorways, classical reliefs and statues. Look up, and the entire ceiling is a rich wonderland of sculpted stucco. This room, influenced by the Italian genius Palladio, is a magnificent piece of installation art, created centuries before the idea of installation art even existed.
Related: Clandon Park fire leaves Surrey stately home 'essentially a shell'
Continue reading...April 29, 2015
Has the Bible gone from hot to not in the art world?
New York’s Museum of Biblical Art is about to close down. What a shame: religious art may not attract wealthy donors, but the Bible has always been – and remains – a powerful trigger for artistic expression
Is the Bible hot? It is not – at least in the art world.
New York’s Museum of Biblical Art has announced that it is closing, despite a big success with its latest – its last – exhibition about the great Florentine artist Donatello.
Continue reading...April 28, 2015
Art students’ election posters: a landscape of alienation and distrust
In a collaboration with Guardian Witness, we asked students to design alternative election posters. Their work is a striking insight into what younger voters think, as well as a dead-accurate view of this election and its probable outcome
Art has a way of revealing the truth. When art students responded to an invitation by the Guardian to design election posters, they did not so much produce great political art as give a voice to some of the young voters, potential voters and non-voters whose futures will be so influenced by the outcome of next Thursday’s General Election. What do these young artists feel about the choice on offer and how do they see the parties, or, for that matter, democracy itself?
Related: The best alternative election posters – in pictures
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