Art Education is Stuck Two years ago someone suggested I answer the question ‘What Happened to Art Education?’. This appealed slightly because it was a subject about which I thought I ought to know more than was the case. Something is clearly awry when so many complaints are aired about the poverty of tuition and… Continue reading Editorial – November 2016
Category: Editorials
Editorial – September 2016
Pictures of Nothing and Very Like John Moores Exhibition 2016 Most of Europe’s countries are either bankrupt or in economic meltdown, their infrastructure crumbling and public services reduced; the Middle East and Levant are in post-apocalyptic ruin, in part the result of lies told in our own Parliament; an exodus of desperate humanity is seeking… Continue reading Editorial – September 2016
Editorial – July 2016
Der Clapham Strassenbahn When very young, and when not train spotting, I was a keen bus spotter. It was an ideal apprenticeship for a fledgeling art historian. It involved identifying, sometimes at a considerable distance (through rain), the beautifully crafted, hand-built models, of which there were many different marques and specifications. Every town corporation in… Continue reading Editorial – July 2016
‘Sculpture’ v. sculpture
Among the least impressive legacies of arts administrators’ obsession with Modernism and its aftermath is the impossibility of predicting a work’s status solely from its appearance. You might form your own view about it, but you can’t predict what State Art’s opinion will be because there are no published criteria or guidelines for making such… Continue reading ‘Sculpture’ v. sculpture
Do you feel patronised?
Crossing the centre of Manchester recently heading for the match, an old friend asked me to step inside a handsome Victorian mill considered the Medici Palace of Cottonopolis. He’d worked on the conversion of this pile years before and hadn’t forgotten the impression a particular bronze made on him as he entered the building each… Continue reading Do you feel patronised?
Museums – our national genius
I may frequently express criticisms about their finer workings but British museums and galleries are generally superbly run. Heroic efforts are made to minimise the impact of funding cuts so that even regular visitors will notice little or no impact. From looking at the outward face of our museums you would never guess the country… Continue reading Museums – our national genius
Fibres torn from the brain
In all the doting coverage of ‘Defining Beauty: The Body in Ancient Greek Art’ at the British Museum, no mention was made of the fact that the bulk of major exhibits featured were from the museum’s own collection. Stupidly, I had believed – and perhaps was even misled by advance publicity – that the exhibition… Continue reading Fibres torn from the brain
Are you disadvantaged?
The Department of Culture recently published a White Paper, the first from that department since Jennie Lee’s in 1965, and apparently only its second ever. This chic pamphlet, in truth more PR exercise than policy document, prominently contains that new-age mantra, “access must be increased for those from disadvantaged backgrounds”. The Arts Council also write… Continue reading Are you disadvantaged?
Brian Sewell (1931-2015)
It isn’t my intention to repeat the tediously familiar stories peddled by obituarists relating controversies which Brian’s inclination to mischief and provocation helped encourage. Instead I want to address two issues unconsidered elsewhere: his astonishing generosity and the disgraceful but typical hypocrisy of the BBC towards him. Brian was a working man. He called himself… Continue reading Brian Sewell (1931-2015)
Des beaux-arts
Anthony Daniels visits a degree show at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. I am in blood Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er. Macbeth, Act 3 scene iv No one would have understood better than Macbeth the logic of the inexorable… Continue reading Des beaux-arts