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Misery and Splendour: Images of prostitution 1850-1910 at the Musée d’Orsay
Opening Misery and Splendour: Images of prostition, 1850-1910 not so long after a large exhibition on the artistic influence of the Marquis de Sade could inspire accusations of the Musée d’Orsay creating provocating subject-matter to draw in the crowds. Yet this seems hasty: I’m actually surprised such a display was not shown sooner. Indeed, the…
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Beauté Congo Kitoko at Fondation Cartier
If I had to be quizzed about artists from the Democratic Republic of Congo a few months ago, I would have to admit that I would not have been able to list many off the top of my head. On a wider level, the lack of exposure of arists from the African continent in terms…
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Goya: The Portraits, at The National Gallery
What we make of an artist’s career after he is long gone often, inevitably, is at odds with the artist’s own intentions. Goya wanted to be known for his portraiture, and in his particular his ambitious role as a court portrait painter. He could hardly predict that the vision we have of him mainly conjure the…
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Bruce Nauman at Fondation Cartier
Time can shape both the content and the format of a work and the way it is visited. On my way to the Bruce Nauman exhibition I had a slight time constraint and already drew up a rough estimate of the moment I would finish the visit. However as I left the exhibition I found…
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Tatoueurs, Tatoués at Musée Quai Branly
Tattoos have had tumultuous and multi-faceted histories as objects of admiration or contempt. From a symbol of pride and honour in many civilizations, a brand of shame and criminality in others, the tattoo is now seen as a globalized aesthetic trend while retaining some of this “mysterious” edge and ambiguity. Popular but still largely alternative,…
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Conflict Time Photography at Tate Modern
Images of war and conflict invade us more than ever before. The constant presence of them in photographs and videos, on television, in press, on the internet, is both an eye-opener to the horrors of wars far away from us yet strangely desensitizing when we become “accustomed” to them. 2014 has been rife with these…
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Studio Ghibli Layout Designs: Understanding the Secrets of Takahata/Miyazaki Animation at Musée Art Ludique
Animation is a strange and fascinating process, and just as strange to document and curate. Whereas the finished animated feature rarely lasts more than one hour and a half, its creation and process takes years, following meticulous, painstaking stages that will ultimately result in spontaneous, dynamic movement. Maybe the reason I feel so strongly about…
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Niki de Saint-Phalle at the Grand Palais
Niki de Saint-Phalle is the type of artist that can bring to mind not necessarily one work in particular but a type of composite image, or iconic aura, that is instantly recognizable. This phrase cropped up in my conversations about her: “You think you don’t know her but you actually do: you know, these large, colourful women.” In…
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Wedding Dresses 1775-2014 at the V&A
Many girls my age, in their early twenties, were quite dubious when I told them about the Wedding Dresses exhibition at the V&A. Cautious about how interesting it might be at the most, it certainly did not provoke a burst of excitement and enthusiasm about fashion centred around holy matrimony. This can be explained for…
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Claire Mead 