Our long, glorious summer lies ahead. And what the city lacks in sunshine it makes up for with dozens of fantastic, illuminating art exhibitions. Here’s our pick of the shows you can see. Open now These excellent exhibitions, which run throughout the summer, are not to be missed. Michelangelo: The Last Decades A Study of … Read more
One of artist Alvaro Barrington’s earliest memories is of sheltering in the “little hut in the country” where he lived with his grandmother in Grenada, while the rain pounded on the tin roof and music played. Now that simple protective roof has inspired a huge minimalist sculpture – hanging sheets of corrugated iron – that … Read more
Before we talk, Alvaro Barrington gives me a tour of his expansive studio in Whitechapel, east London. It stands on the site of one of the country’s first free schools for the poor, founded in 1860. As we climb the stairs to the top floor of an ornate two-story neo-Jacobian building that was once an … Read more
Mary Delany (1700-88) was a witty memoirist aged 72 when she essentially invented paper collage in Britain. Noticing the similarity between a geranium and a piece of red paper, she took her scissors and cut out a petal freehand. The exquisite plant that grew from Delany’s work looked so exactly like a watercolor that people … Read more
Stony Reception: The Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum – Dylan Martinez Looking back on the year in art, wouldn’t it be nice to start with some paintings? To shed light on one or two of our museums’ important recent acquisitions, such as Joshua Reynolds’ Portrait of Mai (c. 1776), which the National Portrait Gallery, … Read more
Jesse Darling wins the 2023 Turner Prize (PA) Oxford-born, Berlin-based visual artist Jesse Darling has just won this year’s prestigious Turner Prize. Previous winners include Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Rachel Whiteread and Anthony Gormley. In accepting the award, Darling defended the importance of the arts, criticizing former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for “paving the way … Read more