Arts

reviews, reports and essays by Herbert Wright

News

Space and astronautics

Fiction

Free Your Mind: A Revamped Matrix Live in Manchester

A contemporary spectacle on stage, reviewed

(Note: typo in 2nd last para, 3rd last line - 'as many' should have been 'as much'!)

FADmagazine October 2023

Sam Jacob's Against Nature: New Wizardry with Ancient Stones and Landscape

The architect provocateur plays with neolithic dolmen, imagined places and Stonehenge to question our relationship with nature and the past. You can't un-see this show!

FAD magazine March 2023

In conversation with French artist Mimosa Echard about 'Sporal' ...

Her immersive psychedelic show at Palias de Tokyo, Paris is inspired by myxomycetes, the slime-mould-like organism, and the video game she's made!

CoBo July 2022 

New Solidifications of Collective Memory in the City

blog (in English) July 2022 

Originally published (in French) as:

Du devenir des sculptures dans l'espace public

Chroniques d'architecture July 2022

Theaster Gates' Serpentine Pavilion 

Two narratives... two languages! 

In English:

When the Church Bell Rings

CoBo Social July 2022

In French: 

Du Chicago South Side au jardin royale; herbe verte, spiritualité noire

Chroniques d'architecture June 2022

In the Air 

We need to breathe! Art, science and social campaigning meet in this Wellcome show

CoBo Social June 2022

Ellen Gallagher at Centro Botín, Spain

More than a retrospective - an epic journey that links the Black American experience and a dialogue with the ocean

CoBo Social June 2022 

Future Shock at 180 Strand

A trail of digital spectacles, but film and humanity still shine through 

CoBo Social June 2022

What to See at the Venice Art Biennale

... starting with Ukraine

CoBo Social April 2022

Decriminalised Futures

At London's ICA, sex workers issue a collective call for rights, but also reveal their emotions and humanity through art

CoBo Social March 2022

"About Us" - Temps Profond à Paisley

What is our place in the universe and 'deep time'? The first event of a UK-wide celebration makes you wonder... In French! 

Chroniques d'architecture March 2022

English version to be blogged soon

Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale

There's an explosion of artistic creativity in Saudi Arabia, with female artists out in front, and curator Philip Tinari gives it a global context in this biennale's first edition

Cobo Social January 2022

This is the Night Mail

A night-themed exhibition at London's Whitechapel Gallery places historic and contemporary Norwegian art amongst the world's best

CoBo Social November 2021 

Hell in its Heydey

A look at Pablo Bronstein's current show at the Soane Museum, London. The artist offers his take on the glorious dystopia he has created.

CoBo Social Nov 2021

Ibrahim Mahama's Lazarus

The Ghanaian artist explores his country's post-colonial history with a stunning show at White Cube Bermondsey

CoBo Social October 2021

Manchester International Festival 2021

- tackling big issues, but offering charm, drama and fun too

CoBo Social July 2021

World's Longest Public Artwork

Leo Villareal's Illuminated River lights up Thames bridge and just got longer. Villareal reveals the backstory, from Burning Man to digitally synchronising brain rhythms

CoBo Social June 2021 

Stepping into the Synthetic Forest with Andreas Greiner

A Berlin artist working in the zone where biology and technology meet has used AI to generate a forest
CoBo Social October 2020

Toyin Ojih Odutola's

A Counterveiling Theory

A review of a new African myth presented in an epic show at the Barbican

CoBo September 2020

Langlands & Bell's Degrees of Truth

New works respond to the Regency setting of the Soane Museum, and retrospective works remind us how the artists question global interconnectedness and truth in architecture 

CoBo Social March 2020

De Portzamparc's new spaces are conceptual, not physical 

Christian de Portzamparc designs astonishing buildings around the world, but his paintings reveal extraordinary ideas that exist in a cerebral space 

FADmagazine January 2020

Kai Kartio, director of Helsinki's Amos Rex, speaks...

about Japanese digital collective teamLab's opening show and considers: Is art is getting infantlised? 

CHAMP magazine September 2018

Amos Rex opens with teamLab… and 3 more reasons to rush to Helsinki

A surrealistic new art gallery opens with an immerive show by Japanese digital collective teamLab, joining three major summer shows elsewhere in Helsinki

FAD magazine August 2018

Behind and Beyond Christo's Masataba

It's probably London's most spectacular artwork this year, but what's it about, how does it fit in as art, and what's the backstory?

originally FAD magazine July 2018

- this story to be reblogged...

Dreams of Nature and Concrete: 

Studio Drift at the Stedelijk

Awe and messages in mesmerising installations...Includes interview with Studio Drift's Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta

profile in Elephant May 2018

interview in CoBo Social June 2018

Elephant May 2018

Finding the Truth Where It Hurts

Forensic Architecture are not artists but investigators, seeking the truth about some of the darkest events of our time. A show at the ICA, London reveals some of their work

Journal of Wild Culture April 2018 

National Gallery Singapore's director

Eugene Tan interviewed: 

Reaching from Southeast Asia to Paris

CoBo Social March 2018

Andreas Gursky- Getting the Big Picture

The Hayward Gallery is back with an epic retrospective of photographer Andreas Gursky

FAD magazine January 2018

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The Feuerle Collection: Juxtaposition in a Berlin Bunker

A visit to an extraordinary collection of ancient and contemporary art, and a talk with its collector, Désiré Feuerle

CoBo Social August 2017

Jonathan Baldock & Emma Hart take on Mr Punch in Blackpool

Rising London art stars take us into the world of Punch & Judy, and it is strange and sinister

FADMagazine July 2017

The Appearance of Ding Yi and his Crosses in London

The most constant of Chinese abstract artists, interviewed at his Timothy Taylor Gallery show

CoBo Social May 2017

Antwerp's Modern Art Museum Just Got Better - an internal redesign has opened up extraordinary spaces and revealed wonders

FAD magazine May 2017

Mermaid Coming Ashore at Warsaw's Museum on the Vistula

FAD magazine April 2017

Anne Pigalle Celebrates the Soho of Dreams and Desires

It may be too late to save the naughtiness of London's bohemian heart, but Anne Pigalle leaves a brilliant trace of its evaporating pleasures

FAD magazine March 2017

Child's Play - Mark Neville's photo exhibition at Foudling Museum reviewed

Yes, it's a moosehead in the kitchen. We need to think about kids' right to play. 

FADmagazine Feb 2017

Paul Nash - review of Tate Britain show He painted two world wars and the mysticism of the English countryside

Blueprint Jan 2017, blogged Feb 2017 

Deconstructing Zaha Hadid's Art

She was one of the most exciting architects the world has seen. A show at London's Serpentine Sackler Gallery reveals that she was an extraordinary visual artist as well

FADmagazine December 2016

>>

William Eggleston Portraits

Eggleston is known for his 60s/70s shots of slow-time smalltown scenes in the American South. But he snapped plenty of people, too – and he was technological innovator. Review of National Portrait Gallery show

FADmagazine August 2016

A Choreography of Errors

Pablo Bronstein interviewed about his  Tate Britain commission Historical Dances in an Antique Setting, and further, his passions for the baroque and postmodern; his most salubrious drawings and installations; why he's not an architect; and sundry diverse matters &tc &tc.

Blueprint/designcurial May/June 2016

>>

Review: Strange and Familiar 

Britain as Revealed by International Photographers at the Barbican

Blueprint/ designcurial May/June 2016

Botticelli Re-imagined: The Adventure of Venus on Earth

The Victoria & Albert Museum's show charts Botticelli and artists up to the present re-imagining his work... Who is Botticelli's Venus? How has his vision of beauty shaped our civilisation?

Journal of Wild Culture March 2016
Republished! Cultural Divide June 2016

>>

Out There: Our Post-War Art

A show about the UK's post-war public art reveals wonderful works, and the threats they face to survive
Blueprint/designcurial March 2016

>>

Big Spill Outside London Museum

Indian superstar artist Subodh Gupta's big dazzling new bucket!
Designcurial November 2015

Lightscape: James Turrell at Houghton

The American master of light creates magic at a great English country house and its idyllic grounds
Blueprint/designcurial September 2015

Visions from the Temple of the Sun

A critical look at photographer Patrizia Mussa's vision of Jean Balladur's strange resort, La Grande Motte
designcurial July 2015

Nailing a Very Naughty Boy

Christ! An infamous but adored English musician has been nailed to a cross! And he's hanging in a Church. Artist Nick Reynolds put him there, and it raises questions like: What Became of the sacred symbol of Christianity. Who is this Man Who Would Be Christ King?

Journal of Wild Culture Feb 2015

>>

The First Artist and the Genesis of the Artist's Quandary
Serbian comic strip artist Aleksa Gajic and his wonderful film The Rise and Fall of Art

Journal of Wild Culture October 2014

The Pines in Last seen Entering the Biltmore. Richard Healy discovered American architect Horace Gifford and made an animation of one of his gay beach houses for the South London Gallery.
designcurial August 2014

Hiroshi Sugimoto's Aujourd'hui le monde est mort: Lost Human Genetic Archive at Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Review and gallery: Sugimoto's epitath for the human race.
designcurial July 2014

Traces and Shiny Evidence- a look at Jimmie Durham at the Parasol Unit, London
designcurial June 2014

Henri Matisse: A Cut Above
Charting the rise of the last great flowering of Matisse's talent, on walls and in the chapel at Vence, coinciding with Tate Modern's fantastic Cut-Outs show
Blueprint/ designcurial May 2014

An Inside Job

A British-led operation breaks into a Lithuanian prison. Their tools: art. Their mission: to save lives. I report
Journal of Wild Culture April 2014

Republic of the Moon at The Bargehouse SE1
Artists go on lunar missions of the imagination in the 'Bewildering Beauty of the Moon'...
Journal of Wild Culture January 2014
 

Adrián Villar Rojas at the new Serpentine Sackler Gallery
FADwebsite September 2013

.....

Death and Cones: Phoebe Collings-James' solo show at Cobb Gallery reviewed
theyellowhouseblog September 2013

LS Lowry at Tate Britain
Review Blueprint 330, September 2013
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Oxford Circle
A man called Crowe is installed by Jon Rubin down Oxford Circus Bakerloo southbound
theyellowhouseblog August 2013

John Gerrard's Pulp Press
An extraordinary architectural-virtual installation in a (slightly remote) Norwegian sculpture park- review
Blueprint August 2013

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Soleil Froid at Palais de Tokyo

- an epic Paris show, dominated by Julio le Parc's works but stuffed with loads of other mind-opening spectacles!
Blueprint June 2012

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Camera Obscura: four great C20 photographers- Hervé, Ronis, Callahan and Ueda- in a small Paris show
Blueprint June 2012

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Ice Age Art at the British Museum

Am I the only one who's noted some dodgy premises in this otherwise excellent blockbuster exhibition?
Blueprint April 2013

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Lucy Williams at Timothy Taylor Gallery:
new works surprisingly refresh and celebrate Modernist architecture and ideals
Blueprint Feb 2013

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APG at the Raven Row Gallery a retrospective of the Artists Placement Group, a pioneering but neglected British art agency-cum-collective, from the 60s/70s
Blueprint January 2013

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Kris Ruhs - Landing on Earth 

Milan-based American artist/designer talks about his extraordinary, transcendental installation at the Wapping Project
Blueprint December 2012

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Touring the near and the elsewhere
Following my touring talk with curator Gaia Persico of a major show of urban photography and art
Blog February 2012

Rainer Fetting in Berlin (and New York)
The Berlinische Galerie's retrospective of the great expressionist artist
FAD July 2011

I am a Fantasy-A post-feminist show of Margaret Harrison and The Girls

FAD April 2011

London's Last Great Art Collective Show?- The Woodmill S.A.G.S
blog April 2011

Kinetica Art Fair 2011- cyber-critters, light spectacles and retro-tech!
FAD February 2011

London Art Fair 2011 reviewed
FAD January 2011

Christopher Thomas' New York photography- in denial of the present
FAD January 2011

High Society at the Wellcome Collection

- from the British opium trade to doping spiders in space, a mind-expanding show

FAD November 2010

Surreal House at the Barbican Art Gallery

Run Riot July 2010

42 Questions for God
blog Dec 2009 /Sep 2010

My tour of the Zabludowicz's Library of Babel show
May 2010

Decode is a show exploring Digital Art at London's V&A
Slashstroke magazine March 2010

The Girls- hot photographer-artists interviewed for Love is the Law
September 2009

Two Days In the Life: The Beatles
A fantastic exhibition of photographs by Tom Murray and Michael Ward reviewed
Originally published in Open, June 2008

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