A 100 kilogram pile of ceramic sunflower seeds by Ai Weiwei is to be sold at an estimate of £80,000 to £120,000 Ever since Chinese artist Ai Weiwei opened his installation of 100 million (150 tonnes) ceramic sunflower seeds in Tate’s Turbine Hall, there has been speculation as to when a handful might turn up [...]
Detail from Self-Portrait 1889, by Vincent Van Gogh The title of the Royal Academy’s groundbreaking new show, The Real Van Gogh: the Artist and his Letters, signals the intention of the curators to dispense with the myth of the madman touched with genius, to present instead the art of a consummate professional. From the first [...]
Alonso Sanchez Coello “Portrait de Don Diego, fils de Philippe II d’Espagne”, 1577 One of the biggest art exhibitions planned for next year has collapsed because of a row between a European prince and HM Revenue & Customs. Masterpieces by Rubens and Van Dyck were among the treasures from the royal family of Liechtenstein’s collection, [...]
Something and nothing, form and formlessness, concave and convex, hard and soft, rough and smooth, inside and outside, slow and fast, presence and absence, colour and non-colour, reflection and absorption, surface and depth, clean and dirty, big and small, movement and stasis, austerity and excess, illusion and reality, creation and destruction: Anish Kapoor’s joyful mid-career [...]
Jacob Epstein, Torso in Metal from the ‘The Rock Drill’, 1913-14. Bronze, 70.5 x 58.4 x 44.5 cm. Tate, London. This October the Royal Academy of Arts will present an exhibition of works celebrating the radical change that transformed British sculpture at the beginning of the twentieth century. Over a period of 10 years (1905-1915), [...]
The RA’s summer show is the world’s biggest open exhibition. But what if anything does it tell us about art in modern Britain? Our guest critic goes hunting for gems in the over-stuffed halls.
The splendid new exhibition at the Royal Academy of 19th-century woodblock prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi is dominated by scenes of heroic samurai warriors, fighting to the death, teeth bared and eyes bulging as they grapple with tigers and strange monsters or fend off the flying arrows or slashing swords of their enemies. The show is [...]