Find my work on Rise Art


  • All Too Human - Tate Britain

    Posted March 1, 2018 by Official Review

       

  • London Art Fair 2018

    Posted January 18, 2018 by Official Review

  • Andrew Grassie Interviews 1-3

    Posted December 3, 2017 by Official Review

    ArtTop10.com Founder Robert Dunt in converation with the artist Andrew Grassie.        

  • Graham Crowley Interviews Nos. 1 - 4

    Posted November 17, 2017 by Official Review

    Graham Crowley, painter and Professor of Painting at the Royal College of Art from 1998 - 2006 in conversation with ArtTop10.com Founder Robert Dunt.   Part 1: Education and Being Taught to Think   Part 2: Figurative and Abstract Painting   Part 3: Wall Furniture and the Art Mar...

  • Tate Britain Curator Interview: Impressionists in London

    Posted October 31, 2017 by Official Review

    You can see the interview with Tate Britain curator Lizzie Jacklin below, where she discusses the EY Exhibiton: Impressionists in London with ArtTop10 Founder Robert Dunt.   

  • Rachel Whiteread at Tate Britain

    Posted September 13, 2017 by Official Review

    The ArtTop10.com review of Rachel Whiteread at Tate Britain - is it a show for everyone, or just for cliques in the art world?     Review by Robert Dunt, Founder of ArtTop10.com

  • STRANGELANDS - Walk and Talk with Curator Rosalind Davis

    Posted August 16, 2017 by Official Review

      ArtTop10.com Founder Robert Dunt goes on a walk and talk around the latest Collyer Bristow Gallery exhibition, Strangelands, with the Curator Rosalind Davis. The artist Justin Hibbs also talks about his work.    

  • BEING AN ARTIST #1 - Photographing your Work

    Posted August 15, 2017 by Official Review

    The first episode of the vlog by ArtTop10 Founder Robert Dunt on the day to day life of an artist.   Being an Artist#1 - Photographing Your Work.  

  • MATERIALS REVIEW - Winsor & Newton Gift Box

    Posted August 14, 2017 by Official Review

    ArtTop10 Founder Robert Dunt tests out one of Winsor & Newton's special Gift Boxes.  This one contains a variety of acrylic paints and Robert tests the colours and produces a colour chart and a small abstract painting using only the materials in the gift box.     - Subscribe and...

  • Review of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum Venice

    Posted July 28, 2017 by Official Review

    Here's the new review of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice.        Review by Robert Dunt, artist and Founder of ArtTop10 www.robertdunt.com

  • Damien Hirst - Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelieveable

    Posted July 24, 2017 by Official Review

    Did Damien Hirst dig these treasures up from the bottom of the sea? Or did he bury them there himself and then dig them up?   Is his Venice show real or unreal?   Find out with the new ArtTop10 video review of his show Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable.    &...

  • Art Basel 2017 and Basel Unlimited 2017

    Posted June 19, 2017 by Official Review

    You can find the full review of Art Basel 2017, including Basel Unlimited 2017 on YouTube here - https://youtu.be/5sY7odN0NAw   There's also the whistlestop tour of Art Basel in 8 mins and 30 seconds here -https://youtu.be/Ak7Higz8VBw   And there's the speedy 5 minutes zip around ...

  • Fahrelnissa Zeid - Tate Modern

    Posted June 12, 2017 by Official Review

    You can see the review of Fahrelnissa Zeid on YouTube here, or watch it below - https://youtu.be/LNtiAuv1o0I    This is the first ArtTop10.com video review by Founder Robert Dunt  

  • ARTIST INTERVIEW - Fred Cuming RA

    Posted May 10, 2017 by Official Review

      MISCHEVIOUS laughter belonging to the painter Fred Cuming RA fills the room again. This time his infectious chuckle has been brought on by the fact that he used to get sacked quite frequently from various teaching posts.   "My teaching at that stage was, I suppose, like my character -...

  • Exceptional, Collyer Bristow Gallery

    Posted May 10, 2017 by Official Review

    Let curator Rosalind Davis take you on a magical mystery tour through some 'Exceptional' art works.   The exhibition, which showcases emerging talent from 3 of London's top art schools, Goldsmith's, Middlesex University, and City & Guilds of London Art School, is fascinating and takes you on ...

  • PREVIEW Robert Wilson, Venice

    Posted May 9, 2017 by Official Review

    It looks like there could be some monkeying around at Richard Wilson's Venice Exhibiton that co-incides with the Biennale 2017. The show is entitled "THE DISH RAN AWAY WITH THE SPOON everything you can think of is true" and will open on the 10th of May at the Magazzini del Sale in Venice. ...

  • Japanese House

    Posted April 16, 2017 by Natasha Hall

        ´The representation of the house in art, literature, and cinema is mostly used as a stage for human drama, the composition of the space becoming a mere backdrop to the characters lives.´    (Ostende, F. (2016) Architecture and Life: Human Agency and Form...

  • Colour: A Kind of Bliss

    Posted April 12, 2017 by Natasha Hall

      ´Colour is a kind of bliss... like a closing eyelid...a tiny fainting spell´ Roland Barthes   The title for the exhibition is Colour: A Kind of Bliss that has its origins in the above quote by Roland Barthes, directly referencing the irrisistible, intoxicating and se...

  • Turn back now

    Posted April 10, 2017 by Natasha Hall

      ´Art and Science, the twin engines of creativity in any dynamic culture, are commonly thought of as being as different as day and night.     This is a critical error. The partitioning of curiosity, inquiry and knowledge into specialised compartments is a recipe for cultura...

  • London Art Fair 2017

    Posted January 20, 2017 by Official Review

    I always enjoy London Art Fair, mainly as there's always a really good selection of classic modernist British Art to look at, such as works by Patrick Heron, Ben Nicholson and Ivon Hitchens etc. Then lurking within that there's always a few other intriguing pieces to find.   So here's the Art...

  • Design Review - Samsung Gear Fit2

    Posted October 27, 2016 by Official Review

    For the price this is a cracking little piece of stylish kit. It looks cool in a space age kind of way, is easy and light to wear, and has a superb amount of functionality for the pricetag. If you want a wearable that’s exercised focused with some extra frills then this is for you.  ...

  • Telling Tales, Collyer Bristow Gallery

    Posted October 15, 2016 by Official Review

    A fascinating exhibition that lures you in gently, and then slowly seduces you, until you find you’ve entered another world, another reality, the unknown.   It all starts innocuously enough in the entrance foyer where there’s a nice work by Gordon Cheung. In it a classical picture...

  • Frieze Masters 2016

    Posted October 7, 2016 by Official Review

    You’ve got unlimited budget and unlimited wall space! What would you get from Frieze Masters? That’s the premise for this review, the same as our review of Frieze London, and here’s my choices. A little harder than Frieze London as there’s so many pieces that could make a won...

  • Frieze London 2016

    Posted October 7, 2016 by Official Review

    Wouldn’t it be great to wander around Frieze London and buy anything you wanted and take it home. So that’s the premise for this year’s review. I’ve got unlimited cash and unlimited space at home. So what would I wrap up and take back to look at every day   1. Wel...

  • Edmund de Waal, V&A Lecture, The White Road

    Posted March 22, 2016 by Official Review

    This was briliant. Normally I get quite bored in lectures but this talk was fascinating, and when you remember that it was esentially all about porcelain that makes it all the more incredible.   It's tricky to know whether to write a review about Edmund de Waal himself, or the content of the ...

  • Music Review - The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Forum, 11/3/2016

    Posted March 18, 2016 by Official Review

      What can I say. I've been to loads of Mary Chain concerts. The first time on the automatic tour back whenever that was. I was so scared as my parents kept telling me people died at rock concerts. But I was such a fan I threw all that away to go. I just had to go. And then it did feel more ...

  • Affordable Art Fair Spring 2016, Battersea Park

    Posted March 11, 2016 by Official Review

    There were som gems here, but it took a while to dig them out. I hadn’t been to the Affordable Art Fair for a few years and this time it felt a bit more upmarket that the last time I went. There’s a a really nice cafe on an upper level with a cool view over all the galleries. Where, inci...

  • Complicity: Artifice and Illusion

    Posted March 3, 2016 by Official Review

    A cracking show. The private view was absolutely packed with an eclectic combination of lawyers and artists, all rounded off by Nicholas Serota arriving to look closely at the artworks while dressed in his customary long grey raincoat and briefcase.   I’ve always thought this grey busin...

  • Book Review - How to Approach a Gallery by Jenny Judova

    Posted February 4, 2016 by Official Review

    In a brutal sum up the book says that your art is TOTALLY AND UTTERLY IRRELEVANT to getting into a gallery, or having any success. Frankly if you haven't realised that by now you’re missing something, but still having it spelt out in black and white by this book is well, depressing.   F...

  • London Art Fair 2016

    Posted January 20, 2016 by Official Review

    Maybe its because it was so insanley cold on the day I went. Perhaps that kept people away and that meant there wasn't much of a buzz. Either way London Art Fair seemed a little lacklustre this year. It may also have the been the inordinate amount of black and white, just black, brown and grey paint...

  • Soaring Flight, Peter Lanyon's Gliding Paintings, The Courtauld

    Posted January 14, 2016 by Official Review

    I’d always known Peter Lanyon’s gliding paintings but I’d never really got them, or really liked them until this show. Nor did I know that he’d made weird little gliding sculptures or that the later gliding paintings were less worked with thinner more flat colours. The little...

  • Bridget Riley, Learning from Seurat, Courtauld Gallery

    Posted January 14, 2016 by Official Review

    The fact that Bridget Riley herself was sitting on a bench chatting to a few people made seeing this exhibition a little more surreal than I initially thought it was going to be, and she had on a very nice light grey and black striped scarf, like she was wearing her own work.   Anyway the sho...

  • Frieze London 2015

    Posted October 15, 2015 by Official Review

    Fascinting as usual - here's the ArtTop10 Top 10 of this year's Frieze London -    1. Xavier Vielhan, Light Machine (Music) 2015 - Gallerie Perrotin - Paris, New York, Hong Kong.   Hard to take a pciture of, but these lightbulbs fluctuated brilliantly with images and amazement! &...

  • Frieze Masters 2015

    Posted October 15, 2015 by Official Review

    Frieze London was brilliant once again with numerous paintings to feast on from Picasso to Monet to Patrick Heron to Sigmar Polke. Pure pleasure, only disappointment is that there was no successful celeb spotting this year. Last year Harrson Ford was looking at a Cy Twombly, while people were litera...

  • Frank Auerbach, Tate Britain

    Posted October 12, 2015 by Official Review

    If I could take these pictures home they would work a lot better. They need the chance to be looked at for a long time, and for you to take them by surprise.    I was sitting in front of this one called ‘Primrose Hill, Spring Sunshine’ answering emails on my phone and when I ...

  • Wilkinson gallery, Heman Chong: Overview, Fundamentals, Perform

    Posted September 21, 2015 by Official Review

    This was fun to arrive at. The guy at the gallery reception could barely emerge from the large flag that was draped over his white plinth.    On the ground floor it was still fun. Loads of things were lying around on a big low and white plinth. Books, wrapped canvases, dictionaries and s...

  • Maureen Paley gallery, Michael Krebber

    Posted September 21, 2015 by Official Review

    OK so some of these paintings are minimal - really minimal. There’s a six foot canvas with literally just one stoke of brown paint. On a very thin canvas, a nice linen canvas.     Is it a joke, is it a game? It’s hard to say. It does do what I like about abstract art, it m...

  • Whitechapel Gallery, Barjeel Art Foundation Collection: Part 1

    Posted September 11, 2015 by Official Review

    Genuinely interesting show that presents the largest exhibition of modern and contemporary art from the Arab world in Britain. The show highlights works from the Barjeel Art Foundation’s collection with artists from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere.   There are som...

  • ThriftyEgos, Proof, London

    Posted September 11, 2015 by Official Review

    Fascinating collaboration between the UK based graffiti artists Gent and Newso. Newso also has a graphic design background and the two have been making large commercial commissions over the last few years.     This is a foray into smaller work and the collaboration side of it is good ...

  • Thomas Ruff, Nature Morte, Gagosian Davies Street, London

    Posted September 11, 2015 by Official Review

    There’s an ethereal quality to these small artworks. It’s hard to work out what’s going on initially - what are these artworks, they’re called chromogenic prints, but apparently have something to do with an old fashioned negative. What they actually look like is small old sty...

  • David Hockney - The Arrival of Spring - Annely Juda Fine Art

    Posted September 11, 2015 by Official Review

    These iPad paintings by David Hockney look weirdly painterly. Even when you peer right up close it actually looks like the lines in the pictures are painted over each other. It’s not even immediately apparent that the pictures are printed on paper.          The ...

  • ArtTop10 has arrived in New York!

    Posted August 24, 2015 by Natasha Hall

    An hourglass iPhone created with ground up iPhones, referencing the ´Will it Blend´ series of internet videos (www.willitblend.com). The artist Evan Yee describes how its ´more than a message to the world about technology, I have questions to the viewers about what their experi...

  • Blur - Hyde Park

    Posted June 24, 2015 by Official Review

    Blur in Hyde Park was like a giant sing-a-long. Everybody singing away to the songs until you couldn't really hear the band. Blur were really trying and the whole thing was like an event. The songs from the new album, in particular Go Out and Lonesome street sounded cracking live with a swagger and ...

  • Sculpture for a Modern World - Barbara Hepworth - Tate Britain

    Posted June 22, 2015 by Official Review

    An absolutely cracking Barbara Hepworth exhibition. Really good pieces from all parts of her career, plus some Ben Nicholson pieces and carvings by many of her contemporaries. Interesting to see some of the carvings by John Skeaping, her first husbend. There's a carving of two doves, and then Hepwor...

  • Shoes: Pleasure and Pain - V&A

    Posted June 22, 2015 by Official Review

    I'd seen a lot of press on TV etc before getting to see this show so was amazed some people didn't know about it. There's something for everyone here, it's a sort of weird history of shoes that does make you aware just how much attention we pay to what we put on our feet.    The top bits...

  • David Hockney Painting and Photography - Annely Juda Fine Art

    Posted June 22, 2015 by Official Review

      These pictures are decidely odd. Some of the strangest are the ones where there are huge amounts of chairs in what seems to be an imaginary room, like the picture below. And the picture of the card players below is also odd. But they are also really intriguing and the more you look the more ...

  • Leyden Gallery - Platform for Emerging Artists 6

    Posted June 9, 2015 by Official Review

    Some cool pics from the Leyden Gallery show - Platform for Emerging Artists #6                         These found postcards are neat - the line of the hills is kept continuous from postcard to postcard. Each card is a differe...

  • Photo London 2015

    Posted June 5, 2015 by Official Review

    No pics for this one I'm afraid - but things I liked -    Caroline Smulders - Gerard Malanga photos of the Velvet Underground    Bernheimer - Horst P Horst    Risaku Suzuki @ Christophe Guye Gallery    James Hyman - Dora Maar photo    Eric ...

  • First Thursdays 7 May 2015

    Posted June 5, 2015 by Official Review

    A few things from this First Thursdays that caught my eye -      Clinton Hayden: Objects for Rebels & Lovers - Beers London           iPad print from The Black & White Building                  &n...

  • First Thursdays 7 May 2015

    Posted June 5, 2015 by Official Review

    A few things from this First Thursdays that caught my eye -      Clinton Hayden: Objects for Rebels & Lovers - Beers London           iPad print from The Black & White Building                  &n...

  • Review by Robin Mason

    Posted July 14, 2014 by Natasha Hall

    Qu’est que c’est     Listening to Alex Gene Morrison’s Recent Paintings       What is it these paintings, by Alex Gene Morrison under the umbrella title “Same As It Ever Was”, are saying to me?  Initially they have the echoes of Babe...

  • Whyred SS14 by Julia Linn

    Posted June 29, 2014 by Natasha Hall

    Sven "X-et" Leonard Erixson (November 23, 1899 - May 17, 1970), was a Swedish painter and sculptor.  Abstract paintings with a lot of expressions that can take your fantasy away with no limits, has always captured my attention. The painting above by the Swedish artist Sven X:et Erix...

  • The Paintings of Teresita Dennis by Jonathan Miles

    Posted June 18, 2014 by Natasha Hall

    The Paintings of Teresita Dennis: The Excess of the Future By Jonathan Miles   “In seeking God’s eye, I found only a socket, Vast, black, and bottomless, from which an inhabitant night Spreads over the world ever-thickening beams;”           &n...

  • Pinta

    Posted June 17, 2014 by Natasha Hall

    Pinta London    12-15 June 2014     The installation entitled Colour Field by Sonia Falcone from Bolivia, attracted my attention before I saw it due to the vast amount of pungent and unmistakeable odours sucha as curry, chocolate, pepper, clover, cumin seed, anise, coffee,...

  • AAF

    Posted June 13, 2014 by Natasha Hall

    101st Affordable Art Fair   June 12-15   All about information overload... So here are my ArtTop10 impressions of the show!: Chris Wood Light and glass, science and art http://www.byardart.co.uk/artists/chris-wood/art/ Susila Bailey-Bond Clear plastic tubes that abstract...

  • iD

    Posted June 6, 2014 by Natasha Hall

    iD is a group exhibition curated by Antoni Ferrer featuring five international artists: Risk Hazemkamp, David Hancock, Sarah Baker, Caron Geary and Brigitte Stepputtis. The work is diverse and revolves around the concept of identity.    The work of Sarah Baker expresses an entertaini...

  • Summer Exhibition

    Posted June 6, 2014 by Natasha Hall

    The buzz of expectation from the journalists waiting to enter the press preview, surrounded by the hectic preparations for the formal private view, and observed by a black helicopter circling overhead, created an electric atmosphere of anticipation. My photographer entered first, and I was left imag...

  • Standing on the Frontier Vol 2

    Posted May 11, 2014 by Official Review

    There's two things that instantly strike you about this show. One of them is the absolutely massive painting by the artist Robin Mason. It's not just big, it's absolutely gigantic. It feels like it's about a million metres wide, and all of it is wonderful.   That's the first thing, the second...

  • ARCO2014: Conclusions and trace memories

    Posted February 25, 2014 by Natasha Hall

    Trace memories The experience of ARCO was generally agreed to be endless and exhausting. There were so many works of art that one had to be discerning and not even attempt to appreciate or understand everything, but allow oneself to be drawn instinctually to particular artworks. It was apparent whi...

  • ArtTop10 has arrived at ARCO!

    Posted February 23, 2014 by Natasha Hall

        The opening of ARCO   The Prince and Princess of Asturias officially opened the 33rd edtition of ARCO, and to be honest they didn´t look too interested in the work exhibited, and when they did walk into a booth they didn´t seem very animated with what they saw. How...

  • Madrid: Focus on Dr Fourquet

    Posted February 20, 2014 by Natasha Hall

    Nekane Aramburu, the director of the Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum, recommended that I visit the galleries in the street entitled ´Doctor Fourquet´.    So here is a summary of what I encountered!:   Number 17: Galería Espacio Mínimo Doctor Fourquet,...

  • ArtTop10 has arrived in Madrid!

    Posted February 19, 2014 by Natasha Hall

    Hitting the ground running prior to #ARCO2014!    1. I arrived in Madrid yesterday and dashed straight to the Instituto Cervantes just in time to hear a presentation by Nekane Aramburu, the director of the Es Baluard Museum of Contemporary Art in Palma, Mallorca. She eloquently explained...

  • Countdown to ARCO!

    Posted January 22, 2014 by Natasha Hall

    ARCO International Contemporary Art Fair in Madrid 19-23rd February    The countdown to ARCO has begun, and ArtTop10 are delighted to be attending this year!   Last night there was a conference about purchasing art at ARCO held in the Es Baluard museum in Palma, Mallorca. It was e...

  • London Art Fair 2014

    Posted January 17, 2014 by Official Review

    The London Art Fair is always great for spotting some great Modern British Art, and some good pics by contemporay artists are nestled away in there as well. In no particular order here's my Top 10 pics from the show!    No.1 - I never knew Wiilhelmima Barns-Graham did pics with spots -...

  • New Tate Britain

    Posted November 18, 2013 by Official Review

    The New Tate Britain is nice, bright, big and new. There's a big spiral staircase now in the entrance. The slightly peculiar pattern is form Roman thermal baths and it's no surprise that the staircase was mighty hard to build and only had a millimetre of tolerance in it. What's really nice is they'v...

  • Frieze London 2013 - Top 10

    Posted October 19, 2013 by Official Review

    Freize London is an extraordinary and fascinating thing that you can spend hours going around. There's so much of such different quality and different genre that different viewers can have quite different exeriences. Here's my top 10 moments - basically consisting of abstract art that was there. &n...

  • Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life - Tate Britain

    Posted September 12, 2013 by Official Review

    Tate Britain's new retrospective of Lowry has sparked fresh debate, or should I say opened old wounds, drawn in the argument over the intentions and mental health of the divisive Mancunian.       Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life exhibits landscapes of the industrial north. H...

  • New Designers 2013

    Posted July 17, 2013 by Official Review

    It’s always exciting to see what is new in the world of design, and how much it progresses from year to year. In a world where some of those in the know believe that art has evolved as far as it can, design continues to grow, becoming more and more sophisticated, largely due to the demands of ...

  • OC Art Society Exhibition

    Posted July 8, 2013 by Official Review

    What an amazing show! Just a few hundred yards from White Cube's Bermondsey Space I wandered into this OC Art Society exhibition last Thursday and was pleasanty surprised by what I found. Not only some really great paintings, but film, photography and sculpture by past pulpils from the school Charte...

  • David Hockney, The Rake's Progress - Contemporay Art Society

    Posted July 8, 2013 by Official Review

      I love these David Hockney prints and have seen them many times - most recently just a few weeks ago at a Tapies museum in Barcelona - but here in this great new space of the Contemporary Art Society I really got the chance to look at them slowly and let all their intricacies and qualities f...

  • Fred Cuming - Adam Gallery - W1

    Posted May 17, 2013 by Official Review

    Fred Cuming is an absolute master of colour. I'd defy you to find any artist working today who can incorporate such a range and subrtly of colour into their paintings. I'd say his colours are more inventive than the impressionists and can rival Braque. Within this his paintings also have an atmosphe...

  • The Deepest Darkness: An inspiring exhibition by Robin Mason

    Posted May 9, 2013 by Natasha Hall

    There is so much to see in this exhibition, which can be described as an inspiring imaginary landscape of interrelated paintings, sculptures and installations. The complexity of the visual and conceptual interconnections, the bright colours in the works and the melodic sounds of pinball machines ...

  • NEW ORDER: BRITISH ART TODAY - Saatchi Gallery

    Posted April 25, 2013 by Official Review

    What you’ve got to give Charles Saatchi is the consistency he has in his choice of art. It is a brand - there’s always an element of unsettling surprise, maybe a hint of disgust and certainly something that might just tip you over the edge and make you completely insane if you were havin...

  • Repre 2 - The Representational Art Group

    Posted April 19, 2013 by Official Review

    For some reason I expected the show Repre 2 - by a group of nine artists that share a common vision to capture and depict reality - to be purely about representing the human form, but refreshingly it wasn’t. There were landscapes and a giant moon, as well as huge faces made from material. &...

  • PREVIEW - Repre 2, The Representational Art Group

    Posted March 27, 2013 by Official Review

    Repre are delighted to announce their second exhibition, Repre 2. The show will take place on the weekend of the 13 & 14 April at Silwex Studios, Quaker Street, London E1 6SN with the private view on Friday 12 April 6-9pm. Please email info@repreart.co.uk to be added to the guest list as capacity is...

  • Man Ray Portraits - National Portrait Gallery

    Posted March 15, 2013 by Official Review

    Man Ray manages to add an imaginative element to each of his portraits - maybe it’s that surrealist, dada background - but he seems unhappy just to snap the person, there has to be an idea, a route to explaining or expressing more of the person in every photo.   Le Violon d’In...

  • Anthony Frost: Painting the Joy of Colour

    Posted February 28, 2013 by Natasha Hall

    The Private View of Anthony Frost´s exhibition at Beaux Arts in Cork Street, was packed with people animated in vibrant discussions responding to the colourful paintings.The artist himself was surrounded by friendly faces and welcoming embraces. He was often fanning himself in an attempt to ...

  • Lichtenstein: A Retrospective

    Posted February 26, 2013 by Official Review

    What a relief! An exhibition where you don’t need to read the explanation on the wall before you know what the work is supposed to be about. It’s all there for you in the painting. Lictenstein has left nothing that needs to be explained or based on a post-modernist philosophy - it’...

  • Hayward - Light Show: Joy in the Art of Colour

    Posted February 21, 2013 by Official Review

    An inspirational exhibition which commences with an artwork by Leo Villareal entitled Cylinder II (2012). It is described in the exhibition booklet as featuring ´light and movement, composed, like a musical score....orchestrated in such a way that they create endlessly changing patterns and sh...

  • Panta Rhei: Recent Paintings by Keith Tyson

    Posted February 18, 2013 by Official Review

    ´Panta Rhei´ is a 57 x 50 cm oil painting, on a found painting by Keith Tyson. The original painting was a scene of a sailing boat and was found in a second hand shop, which the artist has painted over with a contemporary harbour scene. ´In that little Panta Rhei painting where I h...

  • Becoming Picasso: Paris 1901 - The Courtauld Gallery

    Posted February 15, 2013 by Official Review

    It's easy to forget that Picasso did have a derivative phase - he didn't just appear producing purely original and revolutionary work. Take the first room of this show with Toulouse-Lautrec type pictures with no real focus. They have much more traditional values in them and are essentially copies of...

  • PREVIEW - Barbican - Duchamp, Rauschenberg, Johns, Cage

    Posted October 23, 2012 by Official Review

    The exhibition The Bride and the Bachelors (Barbican Art Gallery, London, 14 February – 9 June 2013) examines one of the most important chapters in the history of contemporary art. This is the first exhibition to specifically explore Marcel Duchamp’s (1887–1968)...

  • Frieze London - Sales and after show details

    Posted October 16, 2012 by Official Review

    Frieze LondonPress Release16 October 2012  Frieze London 2012: Energetic Atmosphere Equals Strong Sales   At the close of the tenth edition of Frieze London, sponsored by Deutsche Bank, galleries report strong sales and high levels of energy in t...

  • Frieze Masters - Sales and after show details

    Posted October 16, 2012 by Official Review

    Frieze MastersPress Release16 October 2012  Frieze Masters 2012: Overwhelming Acclaim and Strong Sales at the Inaugural Edition   At the close of the first edition of Frieze Masters, sponsored by Deutsche Bank, admiration was expressed by galleries, collector...

  • Frieze London

    Posted October 12, 2012 by Official Review

    Entering Freize London - the heart of contemporary art - right after going around Frieze Masters with it’s museum quality works was frankly weird. Not only did the floor seem more uneven, but so did the quality of the work. I could have spent a couple more hours at Frieze Masters as each piece...

  • Frieze Masters

    Posted October 12, 2012 by Official Review

    Wow! This art fair is good, really really good - I’d expected to see some great examples of modern art and old masters but I hadn’t expected all the other eclectic works on offer here from Egyptian statues to Indian Miniature paintings to a collection of boomerangs.     ...

  • Neil Canning - ING

    Posted October 5, 2012 by Official Review

    As soon as you step out of the lift you are surrounded on all sides by colour, crashing and washing over you like a luxurious wave of visual sensuality. One of the people at the bank said that all the dark portraits of the founders of the bank had been removed and replaced with this burst of light. ...

  • City & Guilds of London Art School - MA Fine Art Show

    Posted September 16, 2012 by Official Review

    I enjoyed going to this show more than I have enjoyed going to lots of shows recently. It had a really good feeling of variety to it and really got me thinking about the kind of works I make - it inspired me for some reason. Maybe as it’s not some dry big gallery exhibition you could still fee...

  • Degree Show Review by Valentina Fois

    Posted September 16, 2012 by Official Review

    As a rule I never usually allow myself to take more than three or four contact cards per show, but during my visit at Slade I could not help myself, eventually leaving with 10 business cards of artists whom I was interested in.    The Goldsmiths show was ok; there were some works of very...

  • Pre-Raphelites: Victorian Avant-Garde, Tate Britain

    Posted September 12, 2012 by Official Review

    This show has torn up my view of the Pre-Ralphaelites. Instead of being bored by the neurotic detail of these paintings I’m now wooed by it as if these works were weird ‘retina-display’ visions; and instead of finding the languid women cheesy there’s a feeling of people tryin...

  • A Taste for Impressionism - Royal Academy

    Posted September 7, 2012 by Official Review

    There's colours you don't quite know in this show, but you want to see them again and again - it's like eating an oyster and that flavour you can't quite put your finger on - you want to try it again to try and see if you can get closer to identifying it Take Monet's painting Geese in the Brook -...

  • Damian Ortega - Traces of Gravity, White Cube Mason's Yard

    Posted September 7, 2012 by Official Review

    I must remember not to read the white sheet of doom when I go to exhibitions. It's too easy to wander in, grab the sheet and read a short description about everything you will see with an explanation about how it reveals certain things about Cocaine and the drug trade in Mexico - you find yourself s...

  • PREVIEW: Neil Canning - A Trace Memory of Landscape, ING 20 Sep

    Posted September 5, 2012 by Official Review

    Landscape is constantly in motion and changing over time; from the rapid movement of a wave, the flutter of a leaf, the subtle drift of a cloud, and the apparent solidity of a rocky outcrop. Casey writes about the challenge for a painter to ́contain something as overflowing as landscape within the ...

  • Edward Munch - The Modern Eye - Tate Modern

    Posted August 8, 2012 by Official Review

    This exhibition is heavily authored.  The explicit intent is to re-locate Munch – popularly (and literally, with The Scream) the posterboy of fin-de-siecle symbolism – as a twentieth century artist, less post-Impressionist as pre-Expressionist.  It is an intent with little rele...

  • Another London, Tate Britain

    Posted August 1, 2012 by Official Review

    There is something troubling about enjoying photography. Photography seems too easy – capturing rather than recreating, not worthy.  So, to re-establish our cultural pride, we split photography into journalism (intriguing for capturing a place or time) or art photography (beautiful but no...

  • Yayoi Kusama - Tate Modern

    Posted June 29, 2012 by Official Review

    Popularly, when people think of Kusama, they think of polka dots and phalli.  Both were in evidence at this comprehensive retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern.  However, their infectious superabundance was kept in check by the strict chronology and even-handedness of the show, charting ...

  • Philip Haas, The Four Seasons - Dulwich Picture Gallery

    Posted June 21, 2012 by Official Review

    This summer, the Dulwich Picure Gallery is exhibiting a set of four large-scale statues by Philip Haas. Each one represents a season and is inspired by Guiseppe Arcimboldo's renaissance paintings in which fruit, vegetables and plants combined to form a human portrait.     Exhibited in...

  • Andy Warhol: The Portfolios - Dulwich Picture Gallery

    Posted June 21, 2012 by Official Review

    The summer exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery is "Andy Warhol: The Portfolios" and consists of 80 works from the period 1962-1984 when Warhol worked almost exclusively on the silk-screen printing method.     Marilyn   It may seem surprising to have such a modern artist i...

  • The Other Art Fair

    Posted May 12, 2012 by Official Review

    OK so I’m in The Other Art Fair which means you probably think my review will be a bit biased - it may be, but not much.   The show is great - and really is a perfect spot to pick up some quality art at a very decent price. But there’s two things about the show that I really like....

  • David Hall - End Piece...

    Posted April 21, 2012 by Official Review

    It's a bit like being in Alien or the Matrix, to suddenly find yourself surrouded by this sea of crackling white noise TVs with cables lunging down into their innards from the ceiling - this is the best installation I've seen in a long while and it's only on for one more day (22 April) so if you can...

  • Damien Hirst - Tate Modern

    Posted April 10, 2012 by Richard Starbuck

    Hirst famously said he would never show at Tate Modern, only dead people show there. Is Hirst dead? I don't think he is dead, I saw him on the telly with Noel Fielding the other day, he was very much alive.   It is very hard to judge the show whilst trying to ignore all the ridicule and up ro...

  • Kate Palmer - Riding Switch - Broadbent Gallery

    Posted March 24, 2012 by Official Review

    There's a real pleasure in looking at these paintings. You can glide up and down the lines and swing back down the scratches and then shift and jump with the blocks of white that almost shift you through time like a layered flickering flim. Then you can walk back and let your eyes fly right acr...

  • Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, 15 - 18 March

    Posted March 15, 2012 by Official Review

    It's the Affordable Art Fair which is always fun. If you fancy buying something or just heading out to the fair for a bit of entertaiment here's our pick of what to look for. In no particlualr order:     Gorgeous paintings by Fred Cuming RA can be found at Manya Igel Fine Arts - this ...

  • Thomas Ruff - MA.R.S - Gagosian Gallery

    Posted March 12, 2012 by Official Review

    The weird thing about this exhibition is that I felt both intrigued and distanced as I was looking at it. And I really did look and try to become engaged, and the more I looked the more it intrigued me, well sort of.   I wanted to look at these huge and beautifully produced photographs before...

  • Gilbert & George - London Pictures - White Cube

    Posted March 8, 2012 by Official Review

    As soon as you enter you’re surrounded, and the paintings and the space are both so vast that it feels like the pictures are above you as well as all around you. You see and feel these massive and essentially black and white images that seem to ripple with pattern and emblazoned across each im...

  • South London Black Music Archive - by Richard Starbuck

    Posted March 1, 2012 by Official Review

    Now to be honest I wasn’t too sure what to expect when I was asked to review The South London Black Music Archive by Barby Asante as I knew there would be no paintings or sculptures to sink my teeth into.    The show consisted of old t-shirts, magazines, ticket stubs and record sle...

  • Hugh Mendes - 'Obituaries'

    Posted February 24, 2012 by Official Review

    Do you want to take a trip with Alice down a rabbit hole and look at the world through a looking glass, so that it looks just slightly bigger and slightly different - then head on down to the Hugh Mendes ‘Obituaries’ exhibition in Shoreditch.   The exhibition consists of small, be...

  • Mondrian Nicholson: In Parallel - The Courtauld Gallery

    Posted February 17, 2012 by Official Review

    Legend has it that when Ben Nicholson first visited Mondrian’s studio he didn’t come away with the memory of any particular painting, instead he left with an atmosphere - that the studio was the kind of place where Saints would live. This superb show manages to capture a great deal of th...

  • Picasso and Modern British Art - Tate Britain

    Posted February 15, 2012 by Official Review

    This is not only the best Picasso show that I’ve seen in a long time, but it’s probably the best selection of Ben Nicholson paintings that I’ve ever seen together. I was really, seriously pleasantly surprised as not only are there loads of Picasso’s that you would normally on...

  • Lucian Freud Portraits - National Portrait Gallery

    Posted February 13, 2012 by Official Review

    Who would have guessed that the small and quirky magic realism paintings that Freud painted in his early career would presage the huge and almost violent nudes he went on to paint. This is one of the best Freud shows I’ve seen as it lulls you into a false sense of security with the gentle, lyr...

  • Ragamala Paintings from India - Dulwich Picture Gallery

    Posted February 11, 2012 by Official Review

    Do you want to see some exquisite paintings with extraordinary and imaginative colours? Then this is the exhibition you should go to.   I remember a gallerist saying to me, “How can you be imaginative with colour,” well this is the answer. It’s especially interesting to see ...

  • David Hockney - A Bigger Picture

    Posted February 5, 2012 by Official Review

    The first room of the exhibition took my breath away, and then the next room, and the next room and the next room. As soon as you walk in the colours of the paintings just vibrate off the canvas as a life force - its like Hockney has put together this complete vision of existence and colour.  ...

  • Revisiting Bermondsey Street to see Kiefer - by Robin Mason

    Posted January 29, 2012 by Official Review

    Revisiting Bermondsey Street to see Kiefer - by Robin MasonWe woke up this morning and decided to go to Bermondsey Street to see the Anselm Kiefer show at White Cube (Mistero Delle Catterali). We rented a studio in Bermondsey Street back in the late 1980's. Then the area was full of semi derelict wa...

  • London Art Fair 2012

    Posted January 18, 2012 by Official Review

    Overall I enjoyed this year's fair - but as can often happen it all felt a but underwhelming at the beginning. Maybe it's just because there's so much to look at that it's difficult to decide where to start, but once you find something you like, you begin to get into the vibe.    It migh...

  • Leonardo da Vinci - National Gallery until 9 Feb

    Posted January 6, 2012 by Official Review

    So does this show live up to the hype? Yes, yes, yes! With so much written about this exhibition and queues wending their way around the National Gallery the big question is was it going to actually be any good when you got inside. Even celebs were busting to get in with gossip that Jeremy Irons had...

  • Ellen Altfest, White Cube Hoxton Square, until 7 Jan 2012

    Posted December 21, 2011 by Official Review

    Ice ice baby! This show is so cool that it almost feels like there's a foot of ice between the viewer and each painting. I can't help feeling that Ellen Altfest is just too scared to actually paint a whole person - which is a symptom of the current art world, the terror of being humiliated for just ...

  • Forest of Art, DegreeArt until 23 December

    Posted December 14, 2011 by Official Review

    As soon as you enter you're surprised and relaxed by the sound of birds, it strikes you even more than the numerous Christmas trees that have been put up inside this gallery as part of a superb installation and group show.   But what's striking about the trees, even more so thinking back abou...

  • Jonathan Lasker: The 80s - until 23 December

    Posted December 12, 2011 by Official Review

    If you can make it to this exhibition before it closes you must. This is an absolutely unmissable show, I'd been waiting years, literally, to see some of these beasts in the flesh - and like all great art shows, or gigs, it wasn't what I expected, but I certainly wasn't disappointed.   When I...

  • Gerhard Richter Tate Modern "Panorama" until 8 Jan 2012

    Posted November 4, 2011 by Official Review

    This exhibition is absolutely stunning. First and foremost I'm an artist and it makes me want to get back into the studio and start experimenting and painting straight away. Seriously do not miss this exhibition what ever you do.   You know the show is going to be good even from the first roo...

  • Tacita Dean "Film" Tate Modern until 12 March 2012

    Posted November 4, 2011 by Official Review

    You can't deny that this is a great spectacle and the huge film screen at the end of Tate Modern's Turbine Hall is really cool and it seriously makes the place look stunning. But the question is whether the film is any good?   The film is essentially all chopped up clips of mountains, snails ...

  • John Smith (film) - Tate Britain - The Girl Chewing Gum

    Posted October 28, 2011 by Official Review

    Face it most people can't bear to watch film in an art gallery - as you could see from the person I saw wander into the room and walk straight back out again when they saw it was a film. The three people lurking in the auditorium when I entered stayed a moment and wandered off and didn't wait for th...

  • Barry Flanagan (sculpture) - Tate Britain - Early Works 1965-19

    Posted October 28, 2011 by Official Review

    This is one of those big fancy Tate shows that you could walk around in about 5 minutes and wander out of thinking little more than: "Nice rabbit." That was certainly the reaction of some of the other people there on the Wednesday afternoon I visited, and there weren't that many of us either, we onl...

  • Frieze Art Fair 2011

    Posted October 17, 2011 by Official Review

    Shock! Shock! There were paintings, this year, lots of them! Abstract paintings as well. OK so Frieze is normally full of more radical art and that does make it more fun than a lot of art fairs, but this year the weirdness knob had been turned to low and there were lots of pics.   My favourit...