http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/?service=Rss http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/lou-reed-photographer-1817676.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/lou-reed-photographer-1817676.html ]]> <p>Lou Reed may be a rock legend, the founding member of the Velvet Underground, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a man so cool that fans keel over in the reflection of his mirrored shades. Yet he has an alter ego, a solitary figure, a man who retreats quietly into nature to observe the light and make elegant, romantic photographs, far removed from his life at the heart of New York City. The process could not be more different but there are parallels between his music and his photographs. Putting together a book of photographs is, says Reed, like sequencing a CD. It is intuitive, an indefinable way of working where things happen not through planning and preordained ideas, but because they feel right. He approaches photography with the qualities of a musician. "The response is emotional. That's all I want; they are taken with emotion and put together with emotion, equal emotion," he says.</p> Features Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/frank-auerbach--in-the-thick-of-it-1817175.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/frank-auerbach--in-the-thick-of-it-1817175.html ]]> <p> I could write like that if I had enough ink," Stravinsky said about Olivier Messiaen, (those densely scored compositions). Artists have had similar doubts about Frank Auerbach. </p> Features Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:48 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/european-fields-hans-van-der-meer-host-gallery-london-1816767.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/european-fields-hans-van-der-meer-host-gallery-london-1816767.html <p>Hans van der Meer wanted to get away from the modern hyperbole that surrounds football's global superstars enclosed in expensive stadiums, and the clichéd pictures they produce. He wanted to return to the basic formula of 22 people on a pitch. </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/van-goghs-letters-the-artist-speaks-van-gogh-museum-amsterdambrthe-arts-of-islam-institut-du-monde-arabe-paris-1816770.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/van-goghs-letters-the-artist-speaks-van-gogh-museum-amsterdambrthe-arts-of-islam-institut-du-monde-arabe-paris-1816770.html <p>You'd imagine that an exhibition in Amsterdam of Van Gogh's letters and another in Paris of the Khalili Collection of Islamic art would have little in common, and you'd be right. The only tenuous connection I can think of is that Vincent's great-great-nephew, the film-maker Theo van Gogh, was murdered by a Muslim extremist in 2004, and that the Khalili exists in part to point out that barbarism and Islam do not go hand in hand. The other likeness between the shows is that both are diffuse, one in a bad way, the other good. </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/unveiling-the-new-warhol-1817011.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/unveiling-the-new-warhol-1817011.html ]]> <p>There have been many pretenders to the Pop art crown worn by Andy Warhol. Forget Damien Hirst or Jeff Koons. An unlikely contender has stepped forward to claim the throne. It is Tim Burton, the film director and animator whose darkly surreal vision has created modern fairy tales such as Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Beetlejuice.</p> News Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/modern-comic-genius-the-graphic-art-thats-not-just-for-geeks-1816598.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/modern-comic-genius-the-graphic-art-thats-not-just-for-geeks-1816598.html ]]> <p>Walk into the ICA this weekend and you won't find the usual contemporary art installations. For the next three weeks it's all about art with a cool comic-book twist. At the sixth Comica festival, the annual London gathering of some of the biggest international comic and graphic novel writers and artists around, hip twentysomethings will be watching their heroes drawing a collaborative comic strip live on to the wall and being projected into the bar next door. There will be the latest comic anthologies for sale, DJs, film screenings and talks by some of the biggest names in the comic-book business, including the co-founder of the Forbidden Planet shops, Mike Lake, and Bryan Talbot, author of the first British graphic novel, giving an illustrated lecture on his new steampunk detective thriller Grandville.</p> Features Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/caesar-rises-20-years-of-water-digs-on-display-1816824.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/caesar-rises-20-years-of-water-digs-on-display-1816824.html ]]> <p>In a dark space in a new exhibition at Arles museum in southern France, underwater sounds play over looped video footage of scientists on underwater digs along the Rhone riverbed.</p> News Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-little-prince-drops-in-on-brazil-1816985.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-little-prince-drops-in-on-brazil-1816985.html ]]> <p>The Little Prince, the intergalactic boy traveler part of many childhoods around the world, is visiting Brazil in a show also honoring his adventuresome creator.</p> News Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/maharaja-the-splendour-of-indias-royal-courts-1815535.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/maharaja-the-splendour-of-indias-royal-courts-1815535.html ]]> Features Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:29:21 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/observations-basquiat-in-photographic-notes-from-the-underground-1815300.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/observations-basquiat-in-photographic-notes-from-the-underground-1815300.html ]]> <p>In a modestly sized apartment on the Lower East of New York, the writing remains on the wall. Despite a childlike charm, they're no ordinary scribblings and the resident, Nicholas Taylor, has no intention of whitewashing over them. Originating from the hand of Jean-Michel Basquiat, they're a reminder of a close friendship that was curtailed by the untimely passing of the artist, aged 27 in 1988. Taylor was part of a very small tight-knit circle of friends that Basquiat trusted as his career spiralled. "All Jean wanted was someone to sit and watch him paint. To be quiet with him," reminisces Taylor. "I really believe he is the most important painter of the late 20th century."</p> Features Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-landscape-with-ascanius-shooting-the-stag-of-sylvia-1682-claude-lorrain-1815310.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-landscape-with-ascanius-shooting-the-stag-of-sylvia-1682-claude-lorrain-1815310.html ]]> <p>What's the role of the figure in landscape? Gainsborough had no doubt. It is to "fill a place (I won't say stop a gap) or create a little business, for the eye to be drawn from the trees, in order to return to them with more glee". It's strictly an extra, not a lead.</p> Great Works Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/sin-city-show-celebrates-the-paris-brothel-that-was-loved-by-cary-grant-1815759.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/sin-city-show-celebrates-the-paris-brothel-that-was-loved-by-cary-grant-1815759.html ]]> <p>It was sleaze all right, but sleaze of a refined and exclusive kind. Throughout their long heyday, the brothels of Paris were as alluring and luxuriously chic as any gentlemen's club or aristocratic salon. </p> News Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/picassos-japanese-erotic-inspiration-on-show-in-barcelona-1815988.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/picassos-japanese-erotic-inspiration-on-show-in-barcelona-1815988.html ]]> <p>The Japanese prints that inspired some of the erotic works of Pablo Picasso are the subject of a new exhibition that opened at Barcelona's Picasso Museum Thursday.</p> News Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/255-artists-to-meet-pope-to-revive-relations-1816028.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/255-artists-to-meet-pope-to-revive-relations-1816028.html ]]> <p>More than 250 artists including Ennio Morricone and Bill Viola will meet Pope Benedict XVI this month to revive the Church's relations with the art world, a Vatican official said Thursday.</p> News Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-global-art-events-agenda--kunst-zurich-lady-gaga-1816494.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-global-art-events-agenda--kunst-zurich-lady-gaga-1816494.html ]]> <p>Next week, Europeans can take advantage of the famous Salon d'Automne art fair in Paris, France, the KUNST Zurich contemporary art fair in Switzerland and a major exhibition of works by American painter David Hockney at the opening of the Nottingham Contemporary in the UK. Americans will be treated to a rare performance by Lady Gaga at the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Los Angeles in celebration of the museum's 30th anniversary.</p> News Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/photos-by-wim-wenders-and-his-wife-on-show-in-madrid-1815187.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/photos-by-wim-wenders-and-his-wife-on-show-in-madrid-1815187.html ]]> <p>German director Wim Wenders and his wife Donata are showing more than 100 of their photographs taken over the past 14 years at an exhibition in Madrid that opened Wednesday.</p> News Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/louvres-mona-lisa-smiles-on-apple-1815636.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/louvres-mona-lisa-smiles-on-apple-1815636.html ]]> <p>Paris's Louvre museum on Thursday launched an application giving Apple iPhone and iPod touch users access to its collections.</p> News Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-art-websites-handmade-and-artinspired-christmas-gifts-1814179.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-art-websites-handmade-and-artinspired-christmas-gifts-1814179.html ]]> <p>This week's selection includes five art websites that offer hand-made art objects and unique art-inspired gift ideas for Christmas.</p> News Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/jann-haworth-art-gallery-wolverhampton-1813580.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/jann-haworth-art-gallery-wolverhampton-1813580.html ]]> <p>Does the Pop Art movement of the 1960s represent a battle between the Unserious and the Overserious? It can look that way. Nothing is more shockingly dissimilar to a silkscreen of a Campbell's soup can by Warhol from the 1960s than a giant work of monochromatic abstraction by Robert Motherwell from the 1950s. Abstract Expressionism seems to have almost no common ground with Pop. One seems to smile and dance around out in the world, while the other glooms and navel-gazes with an enormous sense of macho self-importance. </p> Reviews Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/out-of-this-world-the-museum-of-everything-1813065.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/out-of-this-world-the-museum-of-everything-1813065.html ]]> <p>You don't have to be mad, but it helps. When it comes to Outsider Art, that's a good general motto, but nobody has a definition. For example, was William Blake an Outsider? You could make a case: the symmetrical images packed with detail, the visions, the home-made mythology. Yet Blake studied at the RA, knew the European tradition, consorted with major artists of his time, sought an audience. In those ways, his was the very opposite of Outsider Art. </p> Features Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:48 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/on-the-agenda-were-going-back-in-time-for-a-dalliance-with-dialup-and-an-aled-jonesthemed-christmas-1811024.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/on-the-agenda-were-going-back-in-time-for-a-dalliance-with-dialup-and-an-aled-jonesthemed-christmas-1811024.html ]]> Features Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/little-miss-big-shot-fifties-america-exposed-ndash-by-a-french-nanny-1811040.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/little-miss-big-shot-fifties-america-exposed-ndash-by-a-french-nanny-1811040.html ]]> <p>The timing, composition and realisation grab you. But it's the anonymous drama of the subjects that keeps you looking: who are the two men talking in earnest on the pier? What is running through the mind of the young black man caught in the mirror on a street corner? Yet in the case of the photos presented here, that mystery extends to the photographer herself. We know she was called Vivian Maier, that she took at least 30,000 shots in Chicago and New York in the 1950s and 1960s. For these few facts, we can thank a young Chicago estate agent called John Maloof, whose chance discovery of the Maier archive has brought publishing offers, invitations to exhibit Maier's work all over the world, and the hope, from some, that a new star of mid-century American photography may have been unearthed. </p> Features Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/wild-thing-epstein-gaudierbrzeska-gill-royal-academy-london-1812608.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/wild-thing-epstein-gaudierbrzeska-gill-royal-academy-london-1812608.html ]]> <p>From its title, you might think Wild Thing was going to be a Tom Stoppard play. Its leading players certainly read like the cast list of one: Jacob Epstein, a bolshie New York Jew; Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, young, French, and doomed; and Eric Gill, the omnisexual son of a nonconformist Sussex clergyman.</p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/taylorwood-42-casts-leading-man-19-as-her-husband-1812257.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/taylorwood-42-casts-leading-man-19-as-her-husband-1812257.html ]]> <p>It is a rock'n'roll move befitting the woman once known as the "wild child" of the Young British Artists movement.</p> News Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-silence-17991801-henry-fuseli-1811332.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-silence-17991801-henry-fuseli-1811332.html ]]> <p>The psychology of shapes is good business. Find out your shape-personality type and you'll know yourself, both well and profitably. The square? Your colleagues will come to you for help. The circle? People will bring you their personal problems. But the rectangle? It seems you are always the last to know. And the squiggle? Why do you embarrass your friends?</p> Great Works Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/walkouts-put-art-sale-at-risk-1811700.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/walkouts-put-art-sale-at-risk-1811700.html ]]> <p>Artists and the Royal College of Art are among the victims of the postal strikes. Each year the RCA invites hundreds of world-renowned artists to design postcards, which are then mixed in with others by art students. The whole lot are then put on display and sold anonymously for £40 each. In the past, Anish Kapoor, Grayson Perry and David Bailey have taken part. This year's Secret exhibition opens on 13 November.</p> News Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/observations-new-renaissance-at-the-vampa-1811347.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/observations-new-renaissance-at-the-vampa-1811347.html <p>The V&A's new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries, which take up a whole wing of the museum, will finally open on 2 December. Featuring the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, the Becket Casket, thought to have contained his relics, and dramatic Italian sculptures by Donatello, as well as Gothic altarpieces and 13th-century French stained glass windows this is the V&A's most extravagant project since the British Galleries opened in 2001. It has cost 30m.</p> Features Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/future-classic-the-worlds-first-public-museum-gets-a-16361m-makeover-1811072.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/future-classic-the-worlds-first-public-museum-gets-a-16361m-makeover-1811072.html ]]> <p>Oxford's Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology re-opens on 7 November, after a £61m transformation, Britain's biggest cultural project since the creation of the £100m Great Court at the British Museum. The Ashmolean's extension doubles its display space with a pale, luminous architectural clarity that puts the flaccid classical pastiche of the adjoining Sackler Library very firmly in its place.</p> Features Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/rhyme-scene-investigation-1810367.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/rhyme-scene-investigation-1810367.html <p>Many of the great 20th-century avant-garde movements had one thing in common: close ties between art and poetry. Yet in the 21st century, correspondences between art and music, or between architecture and fashion, are much more commonplace. The Serpentine Gallery Poetry Marathon, which we have recently staged, sought to address this, encouraging a new exchange of ideas between visual artists and poets. </p> Features Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/the-artists-studio-compton-verney-warwickshire-1810369.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/the-artists-studio-compton-verney-warwickshire-1810369.html <p>We all want to know what artists do inside their studios. By the time the work reaches a gallery or a museum, much of the evidence of labour has been smoothed way. The work looks as if it reached this level of perfection – or charming imperfection – without the intervention of the human hand. It becomes just another made thing. </p> Reviews Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-art-websites-image-bookmarking-1810749.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-art-websites-image-bookmarking-1810749.html ]]> <p>This week's selection includes five art websites that feature online image bookmarking.</p> News Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/rodins-the-thinker-visits-brazil-1810090.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/rodins-the-thinker-visits-brazil-1810090.html ]]> <p>"The Thinker," the iconic sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin, has a new home for the next three years: a museum in this tropical city in northeastern Brazil.</p> News Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-art-websites-image-bookmarking-1810493.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-art-websites-image-bookmarking-1810493.html ]]> <p>This week's selection includes five art websites that feature online image bookmarking.</p> News Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/up-close-and-too-personal-a-sophie-calle-retrospective-1809346.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/up-close-and-too-personal-a-sophie-calle-retrospective-1809346.html ]]> <p>Looking at the work that the French artist Sophie Calle has made over the years, it is tempting to assume that she is mad. She stalked a man in Venice and invited strangers to her bed. In New York, she recorded the number of times she smiled at passers by and how often they smiled back. When a lover ended a relationship by email she turned it into a large artwork, inviting 107 women to comment on this intimate correspondence. </p> Features Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/american-icon-warhols-works-on-display-in-argentina-1809332.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/american-icon-warhols-works-on-display-in-argentina-1809332.html ]]> <p>With Andy Warhol exhibits currently at art museums from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Athens, Greece, a show displaying the pop artists' work is also traveling around South America.</p> News Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-global-art-events-agenda-sculpture-by-the-sea-1809633.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-global-art-events-agenda-sculpture-by-the-sea-1809633.html ]]> <p>Next week, art enthusiasts will be able to walk the along the beautiful beaches of New South Wales while looking at the contemporary sculptures that become part of the landscape during the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition in Sydney. Plus a preview of key events in the following weeks.</p> News Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/the-sacred-made-real-spanish-painting-and-sculpture-16001700-national-gallery-london-1808819.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/the-sacred-made-real-spanish-painting-and-sculpture-16001700-national-gallery-london-1808819.html ]]> <p>At the heart of the National Gallery's new show, The Sacred Made Real, lies a question intended to vex: why do we find 17th-century Spanish religious painting so easy to look at, 17th-century Spanish religious sculpture so hard? Why does Zurbaran's canvas of St Francis Standing in Ecstasy strike us as sublime, Pedro de Mena's wooden effigy of the same subject as cheesy?</p> Reviews Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/major-boulle-retrospective-to-open-in-frankfurt-1808807.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/major-boulle-retrospective-to-open-in-frankfurt-1808807.html ]]> <p>More than 150 works of André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732), Louis the XIVth's acclaimed cabinetmaker, are to be displayed in Frankfurt from October 28 in the first international retrospective dedicated to the French master craftsman.</p> News Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/london-independent-photography-celebrates-the-capitals-finest-snappers-1807957.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/london-independent-photography-celebrates-the-capitals-finest-snappers-1807957.html ]]> <p> Eye-catching images from both amateur and professional photographers alike are currently being showcased at London Independent Photography’s 21st Annual Exhibition, which opened on Monday, and runs until the 31 October. The work represents the best in show from the LIP’s membership. </p> News Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:43:51 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-diary-mark-wallinger-pink-floyd-royal-opera-house-john-ofarrell-1807169.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-diary-mark-wallinger-pink-floyd-royal-opera-house-john-ofarrell-1807169.html ]]> Features Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/i-thought-of-drawing-a-square-british-arts-biggest-names-reveal-the-work-that-set-them-on-the-road-to-fame-1807171.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/i-thought-of-drawing-a-square-british-arts-biggest-names-reveal-the-work-that-set-them-on-the-road-to-fame-1807171.html ]]> <p>The beginning. The middle. The end. It is always fascinating and instructive to observe the trajectory of an artist, any artist. Beginnings can be particularly instructive. Is he or she to the manor born? Or is this foray into art a sudden flight into unknown and uncharted territory, at which the family now raises its collective eyebrows in a mingling of horror and consternation? </p> Features Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/observations-comedy-in-the-frame-at-frieze-1807172.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/observations-comedy-in-the-frame-at-frieze-1807172.html <p>Lurking in the far corner of the Frieze Art Fair in Regent's Park last weekend was quite the curiosity – Club Nutz, the self-proclaimed "smallest comedy club in the world", complete with DJ booth, a stage one-foot deep, bar, disco ball and dry ice. If you managed to ride the wave of browsers, beautiful artists and poseurs to booth G22 (in the middle of the younger Frame section of the fair), the 20-person sweatbox provided an entertaining breather – albeit a claustrophobic one – from the rest of the contemporary art fair.</p> Features Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-judith-beheading-holofernes-161213-artemisia-gentileschi-1807173.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-judith-beheading-holofernes-161213-artemisia-gentileschi-1807173.html ]]> <p>It is a generalisation but people who get their pleasures from visiting old master galleries are generally not the sort of people who go to films in which heads are sliced off and blood goes everywhere. Perhaps it's because they have finer sensibilities. Or perhaps it's because they simply don't need to. They can get these things in old master galleries, too. </p> Great Works Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-man-who-set-sail-on-an-island-and-other-works-chosen-for-the-cultural-olympiad-1807643.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-man-who-set-sail-on-an-island-and-other-works-chosen-for-the-cultural-olympiad-1807643.html ]]> <p>The task for the competition was to produce a work of art so sensational that it would raise the hairs on the back of the judges' necks. So the artist, Alex Hartley, thought: "Why not tow a newly discovered island, the size of a football field, from the high Arctic to the South-west of England? And why not navigate it across Blighty's waters accompanied by a travelling embassy?" The judges loved it, and yesterday he became one of 12 artists out of 2,000 applicants to be chosen to produce his work as part of the Cultural Olympiad, marking the cultural side of the Olympics.</p> News Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-global-art-events-agenda-sculpture-by-the-sea-1808293.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-global-art-events-agenda-sculpture-by-the-sea-1808293.html ]]> <p>Next week, art enthusiasts will be able to walk the along the beautiful beaches of New South Wales while looking at the contemporary sculptures that become part of the landscape during the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition in Sydney. Plus a preview of key events in the following weeks.</p> News Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/cultural-olympiad-projects-announced-1809694.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/cultural-olympiad-projects-announced-1809694.html <p> Some might regard a cash injection of £5.4m into the Olympic Games to be best spent on Britain's competing athletes in preparation for 2012. </p> News Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:46 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-unholy-trinity-the-three-rebel-sculptors-that-shocked-the-art-world-with-their-pagan-forms-1806799.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-unholy-trinity-the-three-rebel-sculptors-that-shocked-the-art-world-with-their-pagan-forms-1806799.html ]]> <p>If you find yourself being troubled on the doorstep by a god-botherer, try playing the pagan card. You may find it's effective in its off-putting-ness. The modern missionary is used to dealing with monotheism and atheism and versions of these things. But polytheism is trickier. Someone who seems to believe in a variety of divinities is rather hard to pin down for a conversion. </p> Features Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/yinka-shonibare-willy-loman-ndash-the-rise-and-fall-stephen-friedman-gallery-london-1806802.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/yinka-shonibare-willy-loman-ndash-the-rise-and-fall-stephen-friedman-gallery-london-1806802.html <p>It's an old adage, but it's worth repeating: a human being looks taller, and gets to see further, when he climbs up on another man's shoulders. What can this possibly mean when applied to the practice of artists? It's quite simple. When you make a work, you give it added gravitas by claiming that it refers to, or incorporates elements from, great works of the past. They needn't be works by visual artists alone. They could be by writers too. Samuel Beckett, for example, has been flogged to death in this respect. As a consequence you half-suggest – it is really super-subtle – that you are claiming some kind of parity of achievement, or perhaps that by this simple fact of incorporation of elements from the past, you are even surpassing what you have borrowed from or alluded to.</p> Reviews Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/american-icon-warhols-works-on-display-in-argentina-1807584.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/american-icon-warhols-works-on-display-in-argentina-1807584.html ]]> <p>With Andy Warhol exhibits currently at art museums from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Athens, Greece, a show displaying the pop artists' work is also traveling around South America.</p> News Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-priceless-peggy-guggenheim-1806124.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-priceless-peggy-guggenheim-1806124.html ]]> <p> It was said that she had a thousand lovers in her life, and that she received her most thorough grounding in modern art when she spent a night and a day in bed with Samuel Beckett, interrupted only by her demands that he go out and find some champagne. People murmured that Peggy Guggenheim went to bed with so many men (and occasionally women) because it boosted her self-esteem and made her less conscious of her huge, potato-shaped nose. She loved art and sex in about equal measure, but she was also turned on by fame. Asked why she loved Max Ernst, the great Surrealist painter whom she married in 1941, she replied: “Because he’s so beautiful and because he’s so famous.” </p> Features Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/interactive-portfolios-the-feature-attraction-at-five-art-websites-1806364.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/interactive-portfolios-the-feature-attraction-at-five-art-websites-1806364.html ]]> <p>Five art websites that feature interactive online portfolios present works with a variety of 3D effects or original 'guided tours.'</p> News Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/history-of-contemporary-art-focus-of-new-season-at-new-yorks-ps1-1806724.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/history-of-contemporary-art-focus-of-new-season-at-new-yorks-ps1-1806724.html ]]> <p>New York's Museum of Modern Art's outpost of contemporary art, P.S.1 opens several  shows this week, with an emphasis on art of the 1960s -- the socio-political scene of the era and some of its key artists.</p> News Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/sacred-visions-of-godly-gore-1805583.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/sacred-visions-of-godly-gore-1805583.html ]]> <p> Oof! Actual size, accurately detailed, a severed head is displayed, lying on its side. The skin is wan. The dead eyes are half-open. The cleanly sliced windpipe and gullet are in plain view. This is a work in wood, The Head of St John the Baptist, by the Spanish master carver, Juan de Mesa. It's in the first room. It invites you in, as if into a chamber of horrors. </p> Features Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:04 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/beatles-to-bowie-the-60s-exposed-national-portrait-gallery-london-1805590.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/beatles-to-bowie-the-60s-exposed-national-portrait-gallery-london-1805590.html ]]> <p>The Sixties? It was the decade when popular music in Britain threw off the shackles of America, became shaped and defined by photographic imagery as never before, and when the worlds of pop and fashion eagerly jumped into bed together. This comprehensive show at the National Portrait Gallery, which looks at Britpop year by year, gives us many of those defining images by Beaton, Bailey and others, and much else too – umpteen examples of the new pop and fashion magazines that flourished in that decade; sheet music; archival film of such pioneering TV shows as Ready, Steady, Go!; record covers, and all this to the accompaniment of the music of that decade.</p> Reviews Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-guggenheim-turns-50-opens-the-museum-for-free-with-special-exhibits-1806148.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-guggenheim-turns-50-opens-the-museum-for-free-with-special-exhibits-1806148.html ]]> <p>The Empire State Building in New York City will be lit red in honor of the New York Guggenheim Museum's 50th birthday on October 21. Throughout October the building's lobby windows will display objects from the Guggenheim.</p> News Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/michael-church-classical-music-has-no-anish-kapoor-thank-god-1805577.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/michael-church-classical-music-has-no-anish-kapoor-thank-god-1805577.html <p> Anyone wanting to take the pulse of the fine-art world in its present state should use the BBC’s watch-again facility to catch Stephen Sackur’s interview with Anish Kapoor in BBC World’s Hard Talk slot. </p> Features Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:59:12 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/worth-a-closer-look-the-art-of-science-1805064.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/worth-a-closer-look-the-art-of-science-1805064.html ]]> <p>Science and art once held hands. Robert Hooke, 17th century pioneer of microscopy, did a beautiful picture of a flea, enormously magnified, that is a classic of English draughtsmanship. </p> Features Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/maharaja-the-splendour-of-indias-royal-courts-va-london-1805072.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/maharaja-the-splendour-of-indias-royal-courts-va-london-1805072.html ]]> <p>It would be difficult to find a more visually ravishing show than this one in the whole of London. The objects – from palm leaf fronds on the end of tapering silver stems to cool an emperor's brow, to the silver accoutrements of an elephant; from gorgeous Indian miniatures showing shapely young female royals depending, languorously, from the end of a kite, to paintings of tremendous royal processions that seem to go on and on and on, at such a languid pace, until we run out of wall space – are dazzling, and the setting, from first to last, coyly razzmatazz.</p> Reviews Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/ed-ruscha-50-years-of-painting--hayward-gallery-london-1804624.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/ed-ruscha-50-years-of-painting--hayward-gallery-london-1804624.html ]]> <p> Of the several ways of looking at Ed Ruscha’s Box Smashed Flat (Vicksburg), the least obvious is as a self-portrait. </p> Reviews Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:08 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/on-the-agenda-tanks-are-set-to-storm-our-stages-and-camper-gets-a-japanese-makeover-1803220.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/on-the-agenda-tanks-are-set-to-storm-our-stages-and-camper-gets-a-japanese-makeover-1803220.html ]]> Features Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/miroslaw-balka-tate-modern-london-1804627.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/miroslaw-balka-tate-modern-london-1804627.html <p>Go for a spin on the London Eye! Gawp at the living statues! Pop into Tate Modern for a disturbing meditation on the physical manifestation of the Holocaust! </p> Reviews Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/rankin-when-twofaced-is-a-good-thing-1804803.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/rankin-when-twofaced-is-a-good-thing-1804803.html ]]> <p>They are some of the world's most recognisable faces: defaced. A series of revealing photographs show pop stars rejecting their polished images in order to create original artworks to sell at a charity auction.</p> News Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/art-crime-victim-or-fantasist-1804761.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/art-crime-victim-or-fantasist-1804761.html ]]> <p>Some called it the perfect crime. Others compared it to The Thomas Crown Affair. Now police have a new way to describe the recent art heist that saw a multimillion- dollar collection of Andy Warhols stolen from a prominent Los Angeles art collector: fishy.</p> Americas Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/just-10-years-old-and-already-theres-an-artist-in-the-making-1804745.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/just-10-years-old-and-already-theres-an-artist-in-the-making-1804745.html <p>"I'm going to be a superstar," laughs 10-year-old Isabelle Cain. "Hollywood here I come," she says with a twinkle in her eyes before skipping off towards the photographer who is here to capture this blossoming young artist at home in the quiet Yorkshire village of Dore. This is a little girl obsessed with art and blessed with a talent to match her enthusiasm. </p> News Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-global-art-events-agenda-1805007.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-global-art-events-agenda-1805007.html ]]> <p>Next week, contemporary art lovers can head to the capital city of France to see two major contemporary art fairs, FIAC and Art Elysées, plus a series of smaller exhibitions that will take place in the city.</p> News Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/a-day-in-the-life-of-arts-hottest-city-1804360.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/a-day-in-the-life-of-arts-hottest-city-1804360.html <p>"Even in a city whose energy for contemporary art has been boundless, the number of artists in town for openings this week is dizzying."</p> Features Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-goes-up-in-los-angeles-1804524.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-goes-up-in-los-angeles-1804524.html ]]> <p>The Wall Project, the largest commemoration in the US of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, will be staged in Los Angeles with segments of the real Berlin Wall along Wilshire Boulevard for public viewing, October 17-November 14.</p> News Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/shepard-fairey-street-art-retrospective-at-warhol-museum-1804734.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/shepard-fairey-street-art-retrospective-at-warhol-museum-1804734.html ]]> <p>Street artist Shepard Fairey, whose now-iconic "Hope" poster for the Barack Obama presidential campaign catapulted him to notoriety, opens his retrospective, Supply and Demand, at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 18, 2009-January 31, 2010.</p> News Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-diary-andrew-lloyd-webber-john-walker-alice-channer-ian-mcewan-hilary-mantel-1803267.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-diary-andrew-lloyd-webber-john-walker-alice-channer-ian-mcewan-hilary-mantel-1803267.html ]]> Features Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-mr-and-mrs-clark-and-percy-197071-1803272.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-mr-and-mrs-clark-and-percy-197071-1803272.html ]]> <p>Imagine two ways of setting a scene. Think first of the stage directions of a play, describing a room, its furnishings and possessions. This isn't done for its own sake. These things are clues. They tell us about the characters who occupy the room, their personalities, tastes, status, aspirations. </p> Great Works Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/exposed-the-age-of-excess-1803648.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/exposed-the-age-of-excess-1803648.html ]]> <p>Martin Parr hopes his latest exhibition will be seen as a fitting epitaph to an age of greed and excess – a monument, albeit unintended – to a time pre-credit crunch when the super-rich guzzled champagne and nonchalantly chomped cigars.</p> News Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/party-of-the-week-no-sign-of-the-crunch-at-frieze-art-fair-week-1803271.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/party-of-the-week-no-sign-of-the-crunch-at-frieze-art-fair-week-1803271.html <p>There may be less art snapped up as the recession bites – but there is certainly no shortage of parties during London's Frieze Art Fair week. </p> Features Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/shepard-fairey-street-art-retrospective-at-warhol-museum-1803764.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/shepard-fairey-street-art-retrospective-at-warhol-museum-1803764.html ]]> <p>Street artist Shepard Fairey, whose now-iconic "Hope" poster for the Barack Obama presidential campaign catapulted him to notoriety, opens his retrospective, Supply and Demand, at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 18, 2009-January 31, 2010.</p> News Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-global-art-events-agenda-1804390.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-global-art-events-agenda-1804390.html ]]> <p>Next week, contemporary art lovers can head to the capital city of France to see two major contemporary art fairs, FIAC and Art Elysées, plus a series of smaller exhibitions that will take place in the city.</p> News Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-us-arts-agenda-indias-comics-museo-del-barrio-shepard-fairey-arshile-gorky-1803807.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-us-arts-agenda-indias-comics-museo-del-barrio-shepard-fairey-arshile-gorky-1803807.html ]]> <p>From the West Coast's ‘Heroes and Villains' to the East Coast's ‘Hope' and ‘Obey poster art street artist, Shepard Fairey, this week finds a range of traditional art and modern imagery and a combination of both. Also, El Museo del Barrio and Armenian artist Arshile Gorky.</p> News Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/a-brand-new-creed-the-turner-prizewinner-turns-choreographer-1802717.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/a-brand-new-creed-the-turner-prizewinner-turns-choreographer-1802717.html ]]> <p>Posing Martin Creed beside his dancers, the photographer suggests that he might put his arms out, as if directing their steps? "But I don't do that," explains Creed, holding his arms resolutely by his sides. Then he crosses them: "Actually, I'm usually in a straitjacket... " </p> Features Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/curators-crowned-kings-of-the-art-world-1802817.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/curators-crowned-kings-of-the-art-world-1802817.html ]]> <p>If you want clout in the art world in these recessionary times, you are better off putting pen to paper as a curator than paintbrush to canvas as a jobbing artist. And being famous for making a vast amount of money by immersing dead animals in formaldehyde and exhibiting them in art galleries is definitely not enough.</p> News Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/five-online-art-websites-that-feature-interactive-music-1803027.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/five-online-art-websites-that-feature-interactive-music-1803027.html ]]> <p>This week's selection includes a website that combines flash animation with a musical score defined by user interaction, a flash animation that lets you augment a text-based video clip and the accompanying music, a website from which you can download software that lets you draw music, a website where you can create your own songs using just numbers, and a website that that demonstrates the future of large-screen touch technology.</p> News Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-us-arts-agenda-indias-comics-museo-del-barrio-shepard-fairey-arshile-gorky-1803251.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/weekly-us-arts-agenda-indias-comics-museo-del-barrio-shepard-fairey-arshile-gorky-1803251.html ]]> <p>From the West Coast's ‘Heroes and Villains' to the East Coast's ‘Hope' and ‘Obey poster art street artist, Shepard Fairey, this week finds a range of traditional art and modern imagery and a combination of both. Also, El Museo del Barrio and Armenian artist Arshile Gorky.</p> News Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-goes-up-in-los-angeles-1803554.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-goes-up-in-los-angeles-1803554.html ]]> <p>The Wall Project, the largest commemoration in the US of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, will be staged in Los Angeles with segments of the real Berlin Wall along Wilshire Boulevard for public viewing, October 17-November 14.</p> News Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/fourth-plinth-is-empty-at-last-1802489.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/fourth-plinth-is-empty-at-last-1802489.html ]]> <p> The Fourth Plinth experiment which gave Britons the chance to shed their inhibitions - and even their clothes - was hailed a success by its creator as it drew to a close today. </p> News Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:16:34 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/eduardo-paolozzi-the-jet-age-compendium-raven-row-london-1802073.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/eduardo-paolozzi-the-jet-age-compendium-raven-row-london-1802073.html ]]> <p>Eduardo Paolozzi is usually remembered for his hulking bronze sculptures, such as those in London outside the British Library and Euston station, or for the labyrinthine patterns tiled in the mosaics he produced for Tottenham Court Road tube station. Much less discussed is the dissemination of the artist's graphic work outside the gallery; his designs for everyday objects, such as textiles and wallpaper, and his text and image contributions to the avant-garde magazine Ambit.</p> Reviews Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/are-hirsts-paintings-any-good-no-theyre-not-worth-looking-at-1802080.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/are-hirsts-paintings-any-good-no-theyre-not-worth-looking-at-1802080.html ]]> <p>A few quick questions. 1. Are these new paintings, painted by Damien Hirst himself, any good? No, not at all, they are not worth looking at. 2. So why are you writing about them at such length? Because he is very famous. 3. And why has the Wallace Collection decided to exhibit them? Because he is very famous. 4. And why did Damien Hirst even paint them in the first place? Because he is very famous.</p> Features Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-good-the-bad-and-the-naked-of-londons-plinth-1802230.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-good-the-bad-and-the-naked-of-londons-plinth-1802230.html ]]> <p>From the man in the skin-tight yellow Morph suit to the existential humanitarian who did absolutely nothing, 2,400 people have now climbed the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square to take part in Antony Gormley's artwork. </p> News Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/hirst-dispenses-with-the-formaldehyde-1802234.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/hirst-dispenses-with-the-formaldehyde-1802234.html ]]> <p>Damien Hirst has finally said stuff it to taxidermy zebras and formaldehyde sharks.</p> News Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/five-online-art-websites-that-feature-interactive-music-1802599.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/five-online-art-websites-that-feature-interactive-music-1802599.html ]]> <p>This week's selection includes a website that combines flash animation with a musical score defined by user interaction, a flash animation that lets you augment a text-based video clip and the accompanying music, a website from which you can download software that lets you draw music, a website where you can create your own songs using just numbers, and a website that that demonstrates the future of large-screen touch technology.</p News Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/human-art-show-in-londons-trafalgar-square-closes-1802789.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/human-art-show-in-londons-trafalgar-square-closes-1802789.html ]]> <p>A 100-day long art experiment which saw people mount the empty fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square came to an end on Wednesday with a mass singalong.</p> News Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/visitors-become-the-artwork-at-frieze-art-fair-in-london-1801904.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/visitors-become-the-artwork-at-frieze-art-fair-in-london-1801904.html (Relaxnews) <p>Live video footage and instant snapshots of visitors attending the seventh edition of the Frieze Art Fair in London are just some of the mise-en-scene artworks planned for the contemporary art event.</p> Art Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/major-boulle-retrospective-to-open-in-frankfurt-on-october-28-1801908.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/major-boulle-retrospective-to-open-in-frankfurt-on-october-28-1801908.html ]]> (Relaxnews) <p>More than 150 works of André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732), Louis the XIVth's acclaimed cabinetmaker, are to be displayed in Frankfurt from October 28 in the first international retrospective dedicated to the French master craftsman.</p> Art Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:00:00 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/rosalind-nashabishi-richard-wright-ica-gagosian-gallery-london-1801696.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/rosalind-nashabishi-richard-wright-ica-gagosian-gallery-london-1801696.html ]]> <p>Rosalind Nashabishi is a film-maker and photographer who specialises in the depiction of voyeurism and role-play. Her films are self-conscious meditations upon the nature of film-making; broodings upon the processes that the material undergoes as it is being wilfully transformed into a spectacle fit for human consumption. Every element of the film is picked apart before our eyes – how image is manipulated by the overlaying of sound; how a camera angle can determine a mood. Many of them are shot on 16mm film, so that the whirring and the antique-sounding clatter of the projector at our back are all part and parcel of the experience. This is how the film experience comes to be what it is. That is what she is saying to us.</p> Reviews Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/ed-ruscha-a-man-of-his-words-1801704.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/ed-ruscha-a-man-of-his-words-1801704.html ]]> <p>There's a picture by the Renaissance Venetian artist Giorgione called The Tempest. It's famous for being baffling. It shows a landscape and a town, a flash of lightning in the sky, two isolated pillars, a soldier, a naked woman and a baby – an all too meaningful ensemble. But what on earth does it mean? A story? An allegory? Art historians have wondered, and no answer has been found. </p> Features Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/michael-glover-a-journey-into-the-terror-of-sensory-deprivation-ndash-nearly-1801781.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/michael-glover-a-journey-into-the-terror-of-sensory-deprivation-ndash-nearly-1801781.html <p>Things are getting worse and worse and worse! Those words, once uttered, with the most resounding lugubriousness, by the great poet and translator Michael Hamburger, ring in my ears as I approach Miroslaw Balka's giant black, ship's container-like installation at the back end of Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. (You can't even really see it as you walk down the ramp from the entrance.) Its title is How It Is, which is, of course, a straight steal from Samuel Beckett, who wrote a novel of that same name in which the hero (hero?!) crawls through mud everlastingly.</p> Reviews Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/dark-arts-in-turbine-hall-1801782.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/dark-arts-in-turbine-hall-1801782.html ]]> <p>Once there was light, in the form of a fake sun beaming down at thousands of basking visitors at Tate Modern. Now, the gallery's vast Turbine Hall has been filled with darkness.</p> Features Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/gallery-visitors-invited-to-enter-black-hole-1801605.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/gallery-visitors-invited-to-enter-black-hole-1801605.html ]]> <p> A huge "black hole" was unveiled today as the latest exhibition at the Tate Modern. </p> Art Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:12:36 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/weekly-global-art-events-agenda-1801467.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/weekly-global-art-events-agenda-1801467.html ]]> (Relaxnews) <p>Next week, explore the history of Futurism at Metal + Machine + Manifesto = Futurism's First 100 Years in San Francisco, take a look at emerging art trends at the Frieze Art Fair in London or find out if seeing is believing at the Art and Illusions: Masterpieces of Trompe l'oeil from Antiquity ‘till the Present exhibition in Italy.</p> Art Mon, 12 Oct 2009 06:00:00 +0100