…by the frivolity and lack of ambition and academic rigour in the 2014 Reith Lectures. Immediately after his predictably rapturous greeting at the first performance, Grayson Perry raised the question of why he was asked to give this year’s Reith Lectures. Well, for the first time in their sixty-six years, they were to be given… Continue reading Performance before content – Eric Coombes is disappointed…
Why shit can never be art – painter Patrick Cullen contests the commonly held view that a relic of an idea is a work of art
If any Jackdaw readers were still in doubt about just how rigged the contemporary art market is after numerous articles on the subject, many from the editor, then Phil Redman’s piece “The Crap Art Market” (The Jackdaw, no 108) should have put the matter beyond doubt. So I take all that as read. Less obvious… Continue reading Why shit can never be art – painter Patrick Cullen contests the commonly held view that a relic of an idea is a work of art
The importance of being Erno – Eric Coombes questions the reputation of a Brutalist architect
Sometimes material appears in a “serious” newspaper which—even in our current cultural condition—is at an astonishingly low intellectual level to come from the prominent “authority” who wrote it. Disagreeable though it is, perhaps one should occasionally draw attention to such material, and subject it to closer inspection. Those who can bear to do so, should… Continue reading The importance of being Erno – Eric Coombes questions the reputation of a Brutalist architect
Lament for a lost, semi-innocent world: Giles Auty remembers St Ives, half a century on from when he first painted there
I paid a first visit to St. Ives in the late 1950s and will never forget my first glimpse of the town from the hill above the railway station. For someone to whom the word ‘sea’ had hitherto largely meant the pebbly beaches and endless mudflats of the coast of East Kent, the turquoise water,… Continue reading Lament for a lost, semi-innocent world: Giles Auty remembers St Ives, half a century on from when he first painted there
Frieze – state art’s closed shop: artist John Keane exposes a cabal
In 1986 I did a large painting which I called The Emperor’s New Pose and was subtitled The Importance of Being Important. It poked fun at art market darlings of the time, such as Julian Schnabel and Georg Baselitz, and included felt that I had stolen from a Joseph Beuys installation at the Anthony d’Offay… Continue reading Frieze – state art’s closed shop: artist John Keane exposes a cabal
Christopher Wool and the art market: selling the soul
American painter Christopher Wool (b. 1955) has been described by the New Yorker as “perhaps the most important painter of his generation”. Christie’s are in less doubt, describing him as “one of the last century’s most influential artists”. Even by the risible standards of bullshit spouted by auction houses and art dealers this is ridiculous.… Continue reading Christopher Wool and the art market: selling the soul
Disobedient Objects – Edward Lucie-Smith at the Victoria and Albert Museum
It is understandable that, in current circumstances, major arts institutions should try to ally themselves with the more anarchic, contrarian elements in contemporary culture. Perhaps this is especially true of those dealing with the contemporary visual arts, committed as these still are to the myth of ‘avant-gardism’. One problem that immediately presents itself, of course,… Continue reading Disobedient Objects – Edward Lucie-Smith at the Victoria and Albert Museum
The art market – selling the soul
American painter Christopher Wool (b. 1955) has been described by the New Yorker as “perhaps the most important painter of his generation”. Christie’s are in less doubt, describing him as “one of the last century’s most influential artists”. Even by the risible standards of bullshit spouted by auction houses and art dealers this is ridiculous.… Continue reading The art market – selling the soul
Kenneth Clark at Tate Britain: the great panjandrum
Edward Lucie-Smith discovers that their tribute to Kenneth Clark is not as complimentary as the Tate thinks it is The Tate Britain show devoted to Sir Kenneth Clark – ‘Lord Clark of Civilisation’, as he came to be called – was a slightly strange phenomenon. It defined a whole tract of the recent history of… Continue reading Kenneth Clark at Tate Britain: the great panjandrum
Matisse at the Tate: cut and paste
Edward Lucie-Smith admires an ambitious exhibition but with the reservation that something is missing The big new exhibition of Matisse’s Cut-Outs at Tate Modern in London is, certainly on the face of it, everything that a major museum of Modern and Contemporary Art should be doing. It is beautifully presented, very professionally curated, has an… Continue reading Matisse at the Tate: cut and paste