Comment on art and everything else
My Friday 26 January comment for www.artreview.com Only a few days after they had been published to support the women’s march day, artist Paul Chan’s publishing house Badlands Unlimited found that their anti-Trump protest posters had been pulled from Facebook and Instagram. The four posters aren’t exactly polite: ‘GOD HATES TRUMP’ reads one, along with… Continue reading Feeling safe? Defending hate speech for artists
My column for the January-February 2016 issue of ArtReview, now online. Read it here (requires free registration to artreview.com) 'The purpose of the public museum is to ensure the long-term availability and display of art.’ With his first sentence, Chris Dercon, soon-to-be-former director of Tate Modern, had already lost the argument. Back in June last year, Dercon gave a speech… Continue reading Public Vs.Private
My column for the summer issue of ArtReview, now online. Read it here "What this seems to mean for contemporary artists is a peculiar approach to seeing humanity: either as just one more ‘thing’ among others – resulting in a fascination with other types of nonhuman entity out there – or as something already long dead and… Continue reading The End of Human Experience
My review of 'Phantom Limbs' at Pilar Corrias, London, on Art Agenda. Read it here "People who have lost arms or legs often report experiencing a “phantom limb”—the sense that the limb is still there, or that they can still move or feel it. It’s a good metaphor, too, for current post-internet art debates concerning… Continue reading ‘Phantom Limbs’ at Pilar Corrias
JJ Charlesworth & James Heartfield First published in Art Monthly, March 2014 Recently, objects seem to have taken on a life of their own. This man thinks that another slice of cake will make him happy. That woman thinks that a better school will get her son good qualifications. This man has thousands of girlfriends stored… Continue reading Subjects v Objects
My column on the latest sculpture commissions for Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth on ArtReview.com. Read it here "The Fourth Plinth committee appear to imagine the public as a strange fusion of bored teenager and angry mob; restless, distracted, excited by bold shapes and colours and thoughtless political truisms about the state of the world."
My discussion of Hannah Sawtell's show RE PETITIONER IN ZERO TIME for Art-Agenda "The building, superimposed on the larger sequence of the pre/post-historic wasteland, is of a factory of sorts, a place for the production of political ideology, at a time when working people’s actions had a direct effect on the world. The building stands in for the… Continue reading Review: Hannah Sawtell at Vilma Gold, London
I'll be discussing the power of private collectors and the purpose of public collections at this year's Battle of Ideas, October 19-20. Do something more interesting with Frieze weekend! Details and tickets here http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2013/session_detail/7869
I'm one of the speakers on this panel discussion, next Wednesday at the ICA, 10 July, 6.30pm Book tickets here Cultural Exchange: More Harm than Good? £10 / £8 Concessions / £7 ICA Members / £5 ICA Student Members 'Cultural exchange' is a much touted yet often rarely examined concept. In the context of the… Continue reading Cultural Exchange: More Harm than Good?
My column for the April issue of ArtReview. "There’s a poster on the platform at Barbican underground station, my stop now when I head to ArtReview’s fancy new offices. The poster is for the Hayward Gallery’s current exhibition, Light Show, with an upbeat, punning quote from The Independent newspaper: ‘Hayward Gallery trips the light switch… Continue reading Are you experienced? The relentless rise of experience art