Another excellent review of the show on Saturation Point by Alan Fowler. Dr. Fowler, an expert on British Constructivism (a 50s movement) takes Blazzo to task for yet more sloppy research.
The list of artists for Okwui Enwezor’s “All the World’s Futures” at the 2015 Venice Biennale has been released. There are 136 selections by the notorious pedant and fop. Needless to say this year’s Ven-Bi promises to be every bit the artistic black hole (sic) that the curator’s Documenta at Kassel ...
A complete waste of time. Writer Simon Donald and director Sam Miller, trying for a bit of that Scandinavian mystique of hits like The Bridge and The Killing but just don't have the story-telling basics down. No pacing, no coherence = boredom. They literally lose the plot amid striking scenery and m...
Okay I was suckered in by the title for this one . A compilation of late 60s - early 70s funk singles from Togo and Benin in West Africa, when there was obviously an enormous James Brown influence haunting the lands. It has charm. There is also a couple of strange long pauses toward the end in which...
As usual I’m late getting with this act, and while never much for Rap am just LUUURRVING their Rain or Shine . This is my absolute favourite song of this batch. Again, I think it’s the little Fi-Fa organ at the start and then that absolutely pile-driving beat that follows. Heaven, sheer heaven. :D
Okay, putting aside the animal theme now – Moore : black East Londoner with a plaintive wail and surprisingly mature lyrics (I think she’s still a teenager). Pumped loads last year. Soulful but maybe a bit limited in song structure, so far. It remains to be seen. The one I liked the best on the radi...
Again, the kind of 60s-ish psychedelic brew that I have always been a sucker for – and still with the wild animal thing going. This newish band hails from Melbourne and towards the end of last year did some well-received gigs around London. Maybe they’ve even relocated there by now. I should keep up...
Another animal themed choice, for listening of late while I put in the long ones on my series about wild animals. You spend ages waiting for the work to really hook you and then when it does you end up doing insane hours without realising. When things are going well or I’m just doing the 99% drudger...
Well things have been pretty quiet on the Music forum while I’ve been away. I’ve been busy working on a series about wild animals and what was more appropriate to listen to than something like Panda Bear? Actually for a while I thought PB was a bit too dance or something and then I saw him on Fallon...
She is SO OVERRATED ! Going back to her first museum survey - The Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven in 1992, I think it was - ( Miss Interpreted ) - yeah that's 23 years of 'em! - there has not been a lot of development or variety. Even back then there was the child sexuality/race/politics nexus, although...
January 30 - April 2, 2015 I mention this show as much for the way I learned of it – via the Phaidon site , of all places – as its refreshingly modest scale. After trawling through some big public gallery blockbusters lately, it’s a relief to find some modest, human scale paintings. And there are j...
Another awesome band name!. They also have a track called Purple Hay, appropriately, but I can’t find it now. Never mind, there’s plenty of stuff of theirs on You Tube. I link to their brilliant White Out . If Viet Cong are my absolute favourite band right now, it’s only by a gnat’s to Trance Farmer...
An odd name for a band from Calgary in the Province of Alberta, Canada, (in case there are other Provinces named Alberta that have escaped my attention). But they are just about my favourite band this fortnight! The killer track is Continental Shelf , but I throw in Silhouettes and Bunker Buster (gr...
London band with a cult following it seems, renowned for their anarchy and intransigence. I’m always the last to know, of course. :( Wish I had a cult following... :cry: Fairly fractious history from what I could see , heavy on the inchoate rumbling and snarling with pounding drums – Mmm... your kin...
I should research this one, but on the strength of two You Tube offerings, I’m taking them as a girlie indie rock outfit, probably from California, judging by the name. Here’s Come On Give Up and here’s Blue Eye.
I’ve no idea, as usual. It’s on Brainfeeder Records, if that’s any help. And this track is A KILLER. There’s also a whole album bum bum to love love love....
The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World December 14, 2014–April 05, 2015 [2,856w] This show is so pathetic I didn’t think it was even worth reviewing. I am persuaded to finally address the topic by issues raised in others’ reviews and offline discussion. I can’t believe anyone ...
This one makes it here as 'Gonzo art criticism'. Particularly liked the post picking up on Jerry Saltz outing 'Wicked' Wade Guyton for fraud, basically. :lol: :!: Although, having said that: I now find that the link to Saltz's story has been cut - presumably by Vulture (New York Magazine) and not j...
Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 – 2015 If you haven’t seen much hard-edge geometric abstraction lately, this might be welcome , if you have, it probably won’t be. There are so many regrettable omissions here you quickly feel ripped off. But this is not strictly a paint...
A simple but useful idea - website as online exhibition for as yet unrecognised American painters . Wish there were more of these sort of sites! :) Although I haven't seen anything that really made me sit up and take notice, it seems catholic or diverse enough to sooner or later throw up a few gems....
I originally called this post Google’s Dodgy Search Engine but I’ve since come to realise the problem is not really Google’s – but rather my blog host Blogspot or Blogger. I’m grumbling here about a very minor matter concerning my post on Hans Ulrich Obrist's book Ways of Curating here on WWR, here ...
An okay-ish show of large abstract emblematic paintings with the odd twist of trompe thrown in for virtuosity's sake. There is actually a bit of this sort of stuff around now, coming mainly from Germany. Wright's version is all very tasteful though, all those harmonised browns and blacks and just a...
Same old graphic designer's taste in style mash-ups within a picture that we've become accustomed to... :roll: Maybe it'd be kinder to skip this sort of show . But then again, my reserves of kindness are running pretty low just now. :x It's not that the guy can't paint but that he's stuck with a ver...
Hans Ulrich Obrist – Ways of Curating (with Asad Raza) Hardcover: 192 pages No Illustrations! No Index! Allen Lane (27 Mar. 2014) ISBN-10: 1846144019 ISBN-13: 978-1846144011 The author is an eminent curator, specialising in Conceptual Art, often in interactive installations and this slim volume out...
A strange Swiss site , that seems to have started with an interest in graffiti or 'Street Art' and marketing and slowley absorbed more of the fine art world. A lot of American stuff featured, together with the fact that it's an English language site, makes me think it's the work of expat Yankees......
Old Maggs has been an establishment luvvie for as long as I can remember. God knows why. Back in the days of Peter Fuller’s posh-zine Modern Painters (80s) she was repeatedly granted respectable attention – before that the colour supps. At the time I assumed it was just bad taste but I now think it ...
Vaguely interesting but ultimately flawed black comedy from notoriously errant Canadian director David Cronenberg - give it five. I only saw this because I was fed up with the pretence of Christmas shopping, the crowds, hype, and a total absence of enthusiasm, following two unexpected deaths in two ...
This is not bad, a modest but effective gangland thriller, certainly the best thing I’ve seen Tom Hardy in, although I haven’t seen a lot of his TV work. I give it 6. Set in Brooklyn, NY, it has a Belgian director (Michaël R. Roskam), a British male lead (Hardy), a Swedish female lead (Noomi Rapace)...
I've since come across Tom McGlynn's review on Brooklyn Rail which is a bit verbose but at least goes beyond paraphrasing the Zwirner press release, which is what most online reviews have been.
ALISTAIR HICKS - The Global Art Compass: New Directions in 21st Century Art. Thames & Hudson 2014 232 pages 150 illustrations 131 in colour ISBN 978-0-500-23919-3 [2,892w] The book is a general introduction to contemporary art, organizing works geographically as well as according to social and ...
Burgert's taste in phantasmagoria reminded me a bit of Cuban painter, Roberto Fabelo - this example , Baroque Seafront 2012. Fabelo is actually an older generation - even older than Rauch - but his grotesquerie strikes me as kind of Germanic , ;) Or how about this guy, Dan Witz? - a Brooklyn based v...