Reviews
Precious Tome
The authors of ‘Emerald’ present a sparkling visual and social history of the precious stone in this ambitious new publication
An Enlightening Show
‘Yoga: The Art of Transformation’ at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery takes an overdue look at the subject in art. Its powerful yogini statues steal the show
Trading Stories
The story of the interrelationship of textiles, taste and commerce, is told with magnificence and aplomb by the Metropolitan Museum of Art
‘Undiscribable’
What can one write about art that is impossible to define? Laure Prouvost’s ‘Monolog’ at the Contemporary Art Society relies on its mistranslation
Puppet Master
Dark but deeply compelling, Wael Shawky’s films at the Serpentine Gallery are a reminder of the power and unreliability of stories
Wire Man
Fausto Melotti, the quiet man of modern Italian sculpture, is given a first UK retrospective at the Waddington Custot Galleries
A Roman Renaissance
‘Antoniazzo Romano: Pictor Urbis’ at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome attempts to shed new light on this enigmatic artist’s career
Classical Romance
‘We can’t avoid the romance of that era’… Kevin Francis Gray discusses the influence of classical art on his own work at Pace Gallery
Reflections on Glass
‘White Light/White Heat’ at the Wallace Collection and London College of Fashion reflects on glass as a contemporary medium
Orient Expression
It’s an interesting premise, but ‘The Russian Avant-garde, Siberia and the East’ at Palazzo Strozzi is ultimately rather disorientating
Fragile Histories
Edmund de Waal creates an atmosphere of meditation at the Fitzwilliam Museum with the display ‘On White: Porcelain Stories’
Visual Feasts
Despite a few bland contemporary exhibits, ‘Art and Appetite’ at the Art Institute of Chicago is an excellent survey of a nation’s changing tastes
New Contenders
As the Turner Prize winner is announced in Derry, ‘Bloomberg New Contemporaries’ at London’s ICA seeks out tomorrow’s big names
All That Glitters
‘Artist of gems’ Joel A. Rosenthal measures the value of a stone not in carats but in colour. His designs sparkle at the Metropolitan Museum
Wit and Anger
The Fondation Cartier’s exhibition of Latin American photography features defiantly eloquent works that mix visual experiment and political fury
Super Cooper
Samuel Cooper famously painted Oliver Cromwell ‘warts and all’. It’s worth getting up close to his superb miniatures at Philip Mould’s gallery
Open Book
The recent two-day symposium, ‘Art, Poetry and the Making of the Book’, brought together three veterans of British book-art with some new tricks
Do Come In
‘Immersive’ artwork such as Elmgreen & Dragset’s ‘Tomorrow’ at the V&A is touted as the 21st century’s spin on a gesamtkunstwerk, but has the hyperreal already become familiar?
Only Connect
His work at the Royal Academy strives for poetic significance, but does Bill Woodrow offer anything new?
Art
‘Art Spiegelman’s Co-Mix’ at the Jewish Museum in New York celebrates the extraordinary breadth and variety of the comic artist’s career
Community of Risk
‘Uproar!’ From the creation of Eve to the kitchen sink, Ben Uri gallery celebrates the first 50 years of the London Group
Up in Arms
The New-York Historical Society’s ‘The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Revolution’ actually reveals a measured side to the legendary show
Wellcome Questions
‘Foreign Bodies, Common Ground’ – the Wellcome Collection’s current exhibition – is refreshingly self-reflexive
White Walled Cage
The reification of ‘revolutionary’ work by John Cage and the Fluxus artists at MoMA is unsettlingly contradictory. The artist is dead. Long live the artist!