Reviews

Change is in the air at Riga’s first biennial

In taking change as its theme, RIBOCA covers everything from science and perception, to ecology and technology

27 Jun 2018
Lightning-struck Tree, (2012), Giuseppe Penone, Private collection, photo: © Jonty Wilde; courtesy the artist and Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Giuseppe Penone sees the wood for the trees in Yorkshire

The Arte Povera pioneer explores art and nature in Europe’s largest sculpture park

26 Jun 2018
Birthday, Marc Chagall

Memory and modernity in Chagall’s early paintings

Marc Chagall realised new worlds in his art – but he peopled them with characters from his own provincial childhood

26 Jun 2018
Serpentine Pavilion 2018, designed by Frida Escobedo, Serpentine Gallery, London. Photography © 2018 Iwan Baan; © Frida Escobedo, Taller de Arquitectura

This year’s Serpentine Pavilion is a more serious affair than usual

Frida Escobedo has created a surprisingly sombre structure for this year’s temporary pavilion

22 Jun 2018

Approaching the divine at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco

An exhibition at the Asian Art Museum asks visitors to consider what it means to represent divinity in human form

21 Jun 2018
The view into the Painted Room at Port Lympne, Kent, with murals by Rex Whistler, photographed in 1933.view into the Painted Room at Port Lympne, Kent, with murals by Rex Whistlerinto the Painted Room at Port Lympne (photo 1933), Rex Whistler.

Why modernism was not the only way of being modern

A new study of art and design in the interwar years makes the case for a distinctly baroque take on modernity

19 Jun 2018

How Cedric Morris fused his twin passions for plants and painting

The British artist was as devoted to cultivating flowers as he was to painting them, as this colourful exhibition reveals

15 Jun 2018
Installation view of ‘Albert Oehlen: Cows by the Water’ at the Palazzo Grassi, Venice, 2018.

Colour and chaos in the work of Albert Oehlen

The self-declared ‘post-non-figurative’ painter proves himself a master colourist in this survey at the Palazzo Grassi

14 Jun 2018
Installation view of ‘Grandfather: A Pioneer Like Us (1974)’ at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2018

The man who turned curating into an art form

Why the experimental exhibitions of Harald Szeemann still have something to teach today’s curators

13 Jun 2018
Sweating Blood (1973), Ana Mendieta.

The disappearing acts of Ana Mendieta

A focused exhibition of the Cuban-American artist’s films explores humanity’s complex relationship with the natural world

13 Jun 2018
Washing Day (detail; 1899), Edward Stott. Watts Gallery Trust

Twilight on the South Downs with Edward Stott

The Sussex landscape was an enduring source of inspiration for Stott, which makes Eastbourne an ideal site for a major survey of his work

12 Jun 2018
Detail of photograph of Jacqueline Lamba and Frida Kahlo in Pátzcuaro, Mexico, in 1938 (photographer unknown)

The alliances formed by Surrealism’s neglected women

How the women artists of Surrealism explored the creative possibilities of friendship

5 Jun 2018
Reading (2018), Hanne Lippard. Performance at Somerset House, Lancaster Room, May 2018.

Reading aloud with Hanne Lippard

The British-Norwegian artist explores the mysterious nature of speech in a new performance

4 Jun 2018
Still Life with Three Sailors, , 1980–85, John Craxton, Private collection, © 2018 Craxton Estate/DACS

The art of friendship in post-war Greece

The lives of John Craxton, Nikos Ghika and Patrick Leigh Fermor come under the spotlight at the British Museum

4 Jun 2018

Marc Chagall caught between two lives

The artist’s memoir looks back to his childhood in Russia and forward to a new life in France

1 Jun 2018
Freedom Farming (2014), Li Binyuan.

Bridging the generation gap in avant-garde Chinese art

Provocative performances by Zhang Huan and Li Binyuan offer a cross-generational view of contemporary art in Beijing

31 May 2018
Idriss, (2012), Mary Heilman. Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth, Zurich and 303 Gallery, New York, © Mary Heilman

An alternative history of abstract art

A survey of works by women painters makes for an enthralling display, but is the gender of the artists the most important factor?

25 May 2018
Detail of the Glaubensschild (Shield of Faith), (1842–47), designed by Friedrich August Stüler, Peter von Cornelius and Alexis-Étienne Julienne, Royal Collection Trust, Photo: Royal Collection Trust/© HM Queen Elizabeth II 2018

European silver is the ideal gift for the British monarch who has everything

The work of the Continent’s finest silversmiths can be found in the Royal Collection

24 May 2018
Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the 8th Ammendment. Photo: Alison Laredo

Power, protest and progress at this year’s EVA International

Seán Keating’s paintings of the Shannon Hydro-electric Scheme set the stage for a probing exploration of Ireland’s national identity

23 May 2018
The Painting Table (1954), Jane Freilicher.

How Jane Freilicher found beauty in the everyday

Freilicher’s paintings are full of flowers, self-portraits and interiors – and manage to be traditional and radical at the same time

23 May 2018
Brian O’Doherty with ’Rope Drawing #128: Flipped Corner (Green/Blue)’ (2017) at IMMA, Dublin, 2018.

Brian O’Doherty gets his due in Dublin

The 90-year-old polymath’s artistic output is being celebrated in his native Ireland

17 May 2018

John Ruskin’s visions of Venice

Drawings and daguerreotypes on view at the Ducal Palace reveal the variety of Ruskin’s engagement with Venice

11 May 2018
The Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin (detail; 1424–34), Fra Angelico. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

‘Few painters in Renaissance Italy used gold to such dazzling effect’

Four reliquaries by Fra Angelico have been reunited for the first time since the 19th century

10 May 2018
Head of the Undersecretary (detail; 2000), Ibrahim El-Salahi.

The calligraphic lines of Ibrahim El-Salahi

The Sudanese artist’s singular vision is equally inspired by African and European culture

8 May 2018