Reviews

screestage (2013), Phyllida Barlow. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire

The Hepworth sculpture prize exhibition is completely baffling – in a good way

Materials range from concrete to soap bubbles; subjects include mass extinction and internet cats. This is a bizarre mix of work, but a fascinating one

23 Nov 2016

Irishness is not the most interesting thing about Irish art

This new book on Irish art in the early modern period includes excellent texts by non-national authors that finally place Irish artists in a European context

22 Nov 2016
Looking at Matisse Today: A Symposium, 2016. © The Barnes Foundation. Photo by Keristin Gaber

Baltimore and Philadelphia’s colourful tribute to Matisse

Between them the Barnes Foundation and the Baltimore Museum of Art have an enviable set of works by Matisse – and their exhibitions and events reflect this

21 Nov 2016

Philippe Parreno’s perfect response to the Turbine Hall

The French artist’s Turbine Hall commission continues his interest in the exhibition as a living organism

18 Nov 2016
Mont Blanc Seen from La Faucille, Storm Effect (begun 1834), Théodore Rousseau. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Théodore Rousseau’s winning formula? ‘Diabolical cunning’ and lashings of sauce

‘A method matters little,’ Rousseau maintained, ‘one tries everything’. See the full span of his dizzyingly diverse practice in Copenhagen this winter

16 Nov 2016
A Rabbit seen in profile (c. 1560–90), artist unknown, Netherlandish. British Museum, London; Courtesy The Trustees of the British Museum

A groundbreaking survey of the European print trade

‘The Print before Photography’ has riches to offer any reader, in any field and at any level of study of European prints

15 Nov 2016
Installation View: ‘Calder and Picasso’, Almine Rech Gallery, New York, 2016

Picasso and Calder’s grandsons team up for a sparkling joint show

Almine Rech gallery makes an impressive New York debut with this combined exhibition of works by Pablo Picasso and Alexander Calder

11 Nov 2016
1984 (1984), Cho Yong-Ik.

A strong showing of South Korean art in London

It’s high time Koo Jeong-A and Cho Yong-Ik were better known in the UK. Thankfully, both currently have exhibitions in the capital

11 Nov 2016

When English embroidery took Europe by storm

The V&A provides a timely reminder of an era when England led the western world in the manufacture and export of luxury embroidery

10 Nov 2016

Picasso satirised his sitters – and art itself

The satirical intent behind many of Picasso’s portraits is striking in this exhibition

8 Nov 2016
Jaguar (n.d.), Frans Post. Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem. Apollo magazine

‘Tastes like chicken.’ Brazilian animals in an Amsterdam art museum

The Rijksmuseum is exhibiting a newly discovered group of animal studies by Frans Post

7 Nov 2016

Unsafe spaces

The history of the asylum is a tale of many reforms and not much progress

5 Nov 2016

The most beautiful calligraphy in the world

Everyone should make a point of seeing these 61 Qur’ans, in a show that sets many common misunderstandings straight.

4 Nov 2016

How classicism took hold of the modern age

An exhibition at Pallant House shows how classicism was a way of reinvigorating modernist experimentation

4 Nov 2016

Charting the life and times of Kenneth Clark

This major, vivid biography of the art historian is meticulously researched – and long overdue

2 Nov 2016

Akomfrah and Turner make for a potent mix in Margate

Turner Contemporary reveals how both artists explore man’s struggle in the face of much bigger forces

1 Nov 2016

More to Mucha than meets the eye – or is there?

An exhibition at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum aims to rethink the familiar work of Czech artist Alphonse Mucha – but could it have gone further?

1 Nov 2016

The global ambitions of Artes Mundi

Six shortlisted artists battle it out for this year’s prize – one of the nominees, Bedwyr Williams, tells Apollo about his futuristic project

27 Oct 2016

It’s the loneliness of Diane Arbus’s images that make them so discomforting today

An exhibition of Diane Arbus’s early work presents curiosities without cabinets

26 Oct 2016

Della Robbia’s glazed terracotta changed Tuscan art

This superb exhibition makes us look at terra invetriata – a prodigious combination of earth, glass, and fire – through the eyes of 15th-century Tuscans

25 Oct 2016
Dog (c. 1954–60), Keith Cunningham

Keith Cunningham: the artist who walked away from fame

He was ranked alongside Auerbach and Kossoff: so why did Cunningham stop painting just as his career was taking off?

24 Oct 2016

The illuminated manuscripts that are lighting up the Fens

The Fitzwilliam Museum’s ‘Colour’ exhibition is a triumphant introduction to medieval manuscript painting

20 Oct 2016
Untitled (detail; 2016), Kai Althoff.

Kai Althoff reveals the pain and the privilege of being an artist

‘I cannot defend or think of it as something people need to see or bother with’

19 Oct 2016
(2016), Neo Rauch. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London

Neo Rauch and the carnival of European art

The German artist’s work, finally on show in London, is an uprooted reunion of everything strange in the supposedly familiar tale of western art history

14 Oct 2016