Miro. Review by Barbara Lewis. For Barcelona-born Catalan artist Joan Miro, Mallorca was the land of his maternal grandmother, of his wife, and from 1956, his adoptive home. It was also a refuge and his connection with it was fundamental to his work.
exhibitions
Medieval Women. Review by Barbara Lewis. Between 1100 and 1600, Europe had 20 reigning queens. It produced numerous women who turned to religion to escape female servitude and gain influence and others who offered practical common sense to relieve the often fatal trauma of childbirth.
Open Wound. Review by Graham Buchan. Open Wound is Lee’s response to the annual commission to make an artwork to fill Tate Modern’s massive Turbine Hall.
Georgian art. Review by Barbara Lewis. Georgia is a country of less than 4 million inhabitants with a language its guides will tell you is unique. They might also mention that the word for hello “gamarjoba” comes from the word for victory.
The Shape Of Things. Review by Barbara Lewis. Damien Hirst is famously fascinated by death and decay. For him, they are inseparable from an affirmation of life, we understand in the Pallant’s major exhibition, the first of its kind, of more than 100 practitioners of British still life – or, as the French would say, “la nature morte”.
Gavin Jantjes: To Be Free! Review by Graham Buchan. Jantjes earliest work on show here is a range of screenprints where he expresses his rage, not just at the oppression in his own country, but in other colonial territories such as Algeria, Ghana and Mozambique.
Expressionists – Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider. Review by Graham Buchan. The Blue Rider was a diverse group of avant-garde artists from a variety of countries and backgrounds who gathered together in Munich pre-First World War to share their beliefs and enthusiasms.
The Last Caravaggio. Review by Graham Buchan. Sometimes it is more rewarding to spend extended time with one great example of an artist’s work than to work through a whole exhibition. This is the opportunity being offered by the National Gallery’s free show The Last Caravaggio.
Extérieurs. Review by Barbara Lewis. Annie Ernaux in 2022 became the first French woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature after producing a body of work that charts her progress from working class origins, feelings of shame during her years being educated at private school that she was not sufficiently bourgeois, to her career as a teacher, then full-time writer.
John Craxton: A Modern Odyssey. Review by Barbara Lewis. John Craxton managed to emerge from school without passing a single exam, not even in art. Instead, charm, daring, connections, irrepressible talent and luck served him better than any merely formal qualifications.
The Avant-Garde in Georgia. Review by Barbara Lewis. Every two years, Belgium and neighbouring countries host Europalia, a four-month international arts festival to celebrate one country’s cultural heritage. Until early next year, the latest biennale focuses on Georgia, a resonant choice given the conflict nearby instigated by Russia.
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300?1350. Review by Graham Buchan. This, quite simply, is a stunning exhibition. It asserts that the first half of the fourteenth century is when painting came into its own. It was now that painting, as an art form, first became something to be commissioned and acquired.
By Graham Buchan • art, exhibitions, painting, sculpture, year 2025 • Tags: art, exhibitions, Graham Buchan, painting, sculpture