NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 Concern has been expressed from museums that visitors are not returning quickly enough following recent extended closures. No wonder if the main galleries in Manchester are typical of the rest. At the Whitworth and City Art Galleries, which although distinct institutions now share the same director, activists have replaced curators and scholarship has… Continue reading Dark Clouds On The Horizon
The Mound In Your Pocket
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER, 2021 I took a wrong turn on my bike recently near Russell Square and came upon Wallis Gilbert’s 1931 Daimler car hire garage in Herbrand Street. Set back almost hidden, and only yards from where I attended university, I had never suspected its existence. It now pleases me so much I regularly detour past… Continue reading The Mound In Your Pocket
2020 Blindness
MARCH/APRIL 2021 Nothing much happened last year in the visual arts. The usual suspects promoted themselves with yards of trivia, usually about the NHS, but nothing serious was made except by those conventional sorts who go quietly about their business. National galleries tried to fill the gap by selling us ‘virtual’ and ‘digital’ ‘experiences’ by… Continue reading 2020 Blindness
Will The Game Be Up For The Arts Council?
JULY/AUGUST 2025 Across two weekends in April 160 artists in York, a city with a population smaller than Islington’s, opened their studios and homes to the public. A useful 60-page colour booklet with a detailed map locating participants was published to coincide with the event. Then, in June, again over consecutive weekends, 209 artists in… Continue reading Will The Game Be Up For The Arts Council?
John Cassidy (1860-1939)
David Lee: State Art and Its Commissars
David Lee The following essay was included in: What is Wrong with Us? Essays in Cultural PathologyEdited by Eric Coombes and Theodore DalrympleImprint Academic2016, 300pp., pb., £12.95 Arnold Goodman, Chairman of the Arts Council from 1965 to 1972, observed: ‘It is not the job of an unelected body to make cultural policy.’ Implicit here is… Continue reading David Lee: State Art and Its Commissars
The Philistine – Sept 2021
Visiting Chichester for the first time in my life recently, I was much struck by the modern building at Chichester Cross, admittedly not nearly as bad as the unbelievably terrible Festival Theatre but nevertheless more than sufficient to spoil the townscape. Any jobbing builder of the 18th century would have done a much better job… Continue reading The Philistine – Sept 2021
Moping Owl: Forming a Collection
Well, a Museum of course needs things to show, and any self-respecting Storehouse, whether afloat or on dry land, likewise needs things to store: so you will be pleased to know that several significant acquisitions have already been – how shall I put it gently? – acquired: item: a large portrait by Kalinde Wiley, an… Continue reading Moping Owl: Forming a Collection
Moping Owl: Double Dutch
I don’t know what it is. Perhaps it’s just me getting on a bit: but I do get the feeling more and more that nowadays things are coming off the bat a shade too fast for comfort, and going through for four every time. Indeed there are moments when I’m not altogether sure what’s going… Continue reading Moping Owl: Double Dutch
Laura Gascoigne – A Way with the Pixels
Laura Gascoigne In April Lionel Messi put a signed pair of his adidas football boots up for auction at Christie’s. Customised with the names of his wife and sons, they were the ‘game-worn’ boots in which the Barcelona striker scored his 644th goal for his club, beating Pele’s previous record of 643 for Santos. Perfumed… Continue reading Laura Gascoigne – A Way with the Pixels