Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
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Saussure, Derrida and others may have questioned it but the received view remains that words have reasonably specific meanings. And the word Tropicália, the title of the current exhibition at The Barbican, according to Helio Oiticica, Read on…
The Barbican, London
13 February - 22 May 2006
Judging an art competition involves being fair, objective, neutral or at least paying lip-service to those qualities. Presumably the rest of us are free to follow our noses and generally isn’t that how spectators navigate their way Read on…
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
8 April - 14 May 2006
A few years ago Immanuel Kant insisted that ‘consensus as to what is beautiful must remain free’. Later on Jean-Francios Lyotard suggested that the aesthetics of The Sublime ‘is not governed by a consensus of taste’ but in Read on…
St. Olave’s College, London
21 June - 22 September 2006
This is undoubtedly a functional image which indicates something about the purpose of the building it is positioned upon (located precisely at latitude, longitude 50.825715,-0.14146 [for Google Maps and similar systems]). One picture is split Read on…
LA Sante, Brighton
1 October - 31 December 2009
“First we shape our buildings, then they shape us” said Winston Churchill. An inclination, six or so decades later, is to add “or do they?” Floor Plan, the current exhibition at Phoenix Gallery in Brighton, Read on…
Phoenix Gallery, Brighton
5 September - 11 October 2009
Is it possible to comment on the output of ‘an artist working with digital media’ without referring to the techniques of production? The question applies to a degree with any genre, to those dealing with ‘traditional’ Read on…
De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill
4 April - 14 June 2009
Quickly outlining the background and summarising the content for Jonathan Gilhooly’s Empyrean Speculum - I personally had the privilege of cooperating in this - which took place in Brighton's Pavilion Gardens adjacent to another Read on…
Pavilion Gardens, Brighton
2 - 24 May 2009
This is a giant musical instrument made from a decaying building which, as it happens, is located only a walk away from the World Trade Centre remnants. David Byrne, backed by New York based Creative Time, is responsible for the work. Read on…
Battery Maritime Building, New York
31 May - 24 August 2008
Celestial Radio, the creation of Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich, appears firstly like an opportunity for the two artists to go on a jolly. Maybe it is and so what. They sail around the coast of Kent (and further afield) broadcasting Read on…
Folkstone Triennial (and other locations), Folkstone
19 - 20 July 2008
A key activity of the newly formed Doomsbury Set, based in East Sussex, UK, will be to take the kinds of imagery and artefacts which escape critical attention more seriously. Generally it is seen as acceptable to state whether one does or does Read on…
The Prince Albert, Brighton
31 December 2004 - 31 December 2008
There is no such thing as a passive experience. With ‘interactive art’ and the increased usage of technology by artists and in other aspects of contemporary culture this fact is often overlooked. A Read on…
La Sucri're - Confluent, Lyon
19 September 2007 - 6 January 2008
Outside the main Arsenale exhibition building in Venice stands a truck. Its colour is primarily a warm vivid red, approaching orange, but with yellow, also a warm version, bordering on ochre, used on the lower parts, on the bumper, around the Read on…
Arsenale, Venice Biennale
6 June 2007 to 11 November 2007
Surveillance equipment comprises the main component of almost all of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's art work. The oldest piece on display at Mexico's debut show at the Venice Biennale is Surface Tension which was developed for an event in Read on…
Palazzo Van Axel, Venice Biennale, Venice
5 June - 21 November 2007
You'll notice Nedko Solakov's contribution to the current Venice Biennale. Like so much on display at this show the subject matter concerns political conflict. The difference with this piece, Discussion (Property), is that instead we are Read on…
Arsenale, Venice Biennale, Venice
30 April - 1 November 2007
If you live in Brighton, call yourself an artist and miss this then you're an idiot. I'm referring to John Goto's travelling exhibition New World Circus. A secondary title is Portrait of the Artist as a Clown so you might be one (a fool Read on…
University of Brighton Gallery, Brighton
7 July - 8 August 2007
Intuitively eight sculptural and video pieces in Brighton's independent Grey Area is too much for the space. As it happens this was most definitely not so for Jonathan Gilhooly's recent show there: now you don't. Read on…
Grey Area
6 June 2007 to 7 July
For a week my intention was to begin by writing the following: "A leading surrealist once commented that a bad film is better than a good one. Blast Theory's Day of the Figurines, a multi-user game (most recently played between the 4th and Read on…
Lighthouse, Brighton
4 April - 27 July 2007