John Akomfrah wins the Artes Mundi 7 prize.

Photography and film making win the biggest art prize in the UK! In November, when I saw the Arts Mundi 7 exhibition on an OCA study day, I had very little time to watch Akomfrah’s exhibit.  We had spent more time than we should have at the previous 4 exhibits so we had to rush to…

Recent exhibitions in Plymouth

We had a meeting of the SW new initiative on Saturday 21st January in Plymouth.  After over two hours of looking at one another’s work, we set off to the Theatre Royal to see the exhibition of the 21 Group, set up and curated by them. The group comprises mixed media artists in the South West.…

RWA exhibition review

Exhibition review 164th Annual Open Exhibition at the Royal West of England Academy. (Joint mixed media exhibition.) With OCA students led by Michele Whiting RWA, Bristol   23rd November, 2016. Curators: Gallery Director, Alison Bevan et al. Location, setting & atmosphere. This was an enormous exhibition, enough to bamboozle any visitor through its numbers of…

Artes Mundi 7 : international art exhibition review.

Saturday 12th November, 2016, was an OCA study day lead by Helen Warburton and held at the National Museum, Cardiff. It was a joint exhibition by the shortlisted 6 artists chosen for the Arts Mundi exhibition which has as its theme “The Human Condition”.  Although this theme encompasses every conceivable facet of human endeavour, there were…

Another weekend, another photo festival!

As if one weekend of photos wasn’t enough, this weekend, Unveil’d saw me signed up for another one but this time, I was treated to photographers talking to me and many others in the auditorium at The Exeter Phoenix.  And by that, I mean communicating on so many different levels!  Six of them presented papers and less…

Brighton photo biennial review

Within half an hour of my arrival at my friends’ house where I was to spend the next two nights, dear Dermot had an epileptic fit – the first in his 66 year old life.  After what seemed to be an age while I tried to make him start breathing & stop looking so blue,…

Feminist avant garde exhibition:TPG, London

I was not going to go to this exhibition because I am really tired of revisiting the photographs of the 1970’s and 1980’s but  I went because I was in London & more specifically Oxford Street for totally non-photo-related reasons.  I also remembered having read the email from TPG which had stated that a key…

Ove Arup exhibition review

Ove Arup V & A museum, London. 6th October, 2016 I have always been aware of the importance Ove Arup’s philosophy was in construction:  a team construction from the beginning.  In this multi-media exhibition, what was very prominent in all the exhibition spaces was the sketchbook documentation left behind by engineers and architects alike.  The sketches…

Review of study day: Conceptual art in Britain: 1964 – 79.

OCA Study Day Themed exhibition: Conceptual Art in Britain 1964 – 1979 Tate Britain, London. 20th August, 2016 Curator: Carmen Julia  Setting: 5 spaces: new frameworks; art & language; the new art (x2);action practice.   I found the space given to the art & language section crammed, dwarfing the viewer  and made objects of the articles…

“Made you look” exhibition review

‘Made you look: dandyism and black masculinity’ The Photographers’ Gallery, London Joint photography exhibition by nine photographers 19th August, 2016 Curator: Ekow Eshun “The exhibition proposes that the adoption of a dandyesque persona is to visibly problematize and re-imagine ideas of black male identity through an arresting and provocative style and attitude.” (quoted from the…