On first sight, it seems like the writ-large example of how women's arts are shunted to one side and underfunded, subject to an endless dialing-down of ambition until they become a weak distallate of their original intentions.
When visiting a retrospective of "Britain's" best-selling painter (as ever, the British are very good at claiming for their own successful Irishmen), it's best to take someone who is if not an expert on the man himself then at least interested enough to have read multiple biographies. Fortunately, I am in possession of just such … Continue reading Beastly, violent, but restrained: Francis Bacon at the RA
Auguste Rodin, in the Tate Modern's The Making of Rodin exhibition, is presented as a barrier-breaker himself, which I'm not wholly convinced by.
With the order to close museums and galleries as well as other public spaces, a little like a 16th-century closing of the playhouses against the plague which saw theatrical companies tour the provinces to maintain their revenue streams, what is there for an arts fan to do? Well... You could watch some design and architecture … Continue reading Art in the time of plague
Or rather, how not to make an exhibition of one painting, particularly an exhibition with a £20 entry fee, of a painting which is usually available to view for free in the gallery, and is not a loan or recent acquisition. The Virgin on the Rocks: And Nothing But The exhibition space is arranged around a … Continue reading The Virgin on the Rocks: How To Make An Exhibition Of One Painting
There is a well-known Soviet-era joke about newspapers. In Moscow, there were two papers. Pravda (Truth), and Izvestia (News). And as the saying goes: if it's in Izvestia it's not Truth, and if it's in Pravda, it's not News. Like most jokes, it reveals something about the culture it comes from, in this case a … Continue reading Opinion: Cui Bono? What can we infer from press ownership, and who owns Britain’s news?
Des Anges Writings 