Visual Research

Reviews events in the London Festival of the Cultural Olympiad. Writer Alexandra James visits a variety of exhibitions, music, and performances, staged through July 2012, witnessing a range of creative voices drawn from the international arena.

Cv/VAR series 146 reviews the work of Damien Hirst (b.Bristol 1965), presented in a retrospective exhibition spanning 20 years, held at Tate Modern, April to September 2012. It explores the development of his art - from the controversial animal vitrines and beautiful butterfly composites, to an extensive series of spot paintings, where the artist engaged in a complex invigilation of coded systems that govern daily existence.

This is a personal view of Picasso and Paper, a major exhibition held at the Royal Academy, and explores over 300 works covering drawing, collages, and prints.

The exhibition attempts a revaluation of the pre-Raphaelite movement of the mid 19th century, as Dr Marsh indicates it is not about gender competition. Rather, it's about rebalancing the contribution of partners, models, and studio managers. It is also about creative discourse and the other significant roles undertaken by women associated with individual artists.

Frieze Masters, London, October 6, 2019. Into the broad arena of the covered awnings of this enormous tented gathering of leading art dealers and the first gallery space is Aquavella, with a variety of exhibits; and come face-to-face with an absolutely spiteful acid green and fluorescent pink abstract by Keith Haring (1958-1990). It’s on canvas dated 1982 and signed lower left. The green is painted in a random ventilated grid over the hyper-intense pink with a bold line of a green stripe on the top edge of the work, which is encased in a glass vitrine.

Review of the exhibition of visionary artist William Blake at Tate Britain, September 2019: The exhibition is arranged in eight rooms of the downstairs gallery spaces of Tate Britain, low-lit, maroon-painted walls, a very comprehensive collection of a highly original and complex visionary creator.

A viewing room by room of Bill Viola/Michelangelo at the Royal Academy of Arts on Monday March 4, 2019. Encounter the video works by Bill Viola on the theme of life, death, and rebirth and the drawings by Michelangelo from the 1530s to 1560s on religious and spiritual themes.

Eco-art exhibitions are part of the trend of our times. Radical Nature, the show at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, demonstrated some of the possibilities and paradoxes of enterprises of this sort. Basically what the organizers had to do is to move the outside indoors. This set them both practical and, in their own terms at least, moral problems.

A recorded visit on January 28 to John Ruskin: The Power of Seeing, at Two Temple Place WC2. The review includes descriptions of exhibits by Ruskin and his associates and his contact with JMW Turner.

Painter Claudia Carr describes her surreal landscapes, composed from reflections of found objects that suggest imaginative scenarios of play and dreams.

Artist Louise Sheridan interviewed at her exhibition at The Cafe Gallery Southwark in 1993. She describes her travels in Nepal and Thailand, and the works produced from a fellowship in Barcelona, Spain. She focuses on "The Envelope Series", votive objects made with wax and encaustic, and works made with Nepalese bark paper.

An interview recorded with the leading ceramic designer and studio potter Janice Tchalenko explores her development, from training with Mick Casson at Harrow Schoolo of Art to growing her own practice, leading to a major commission of supply to the Next retail chain. Tchalenko describes her appointment to renew China's ceramic industry and her activity as the chief designer of the Dartington pottery.

Edward Lucie-Smith reviews Frieze Art Fair London 2013, in a critical take on the contemporary scene. It's pretty easy to get the point of the Frieze Masters art fair, now in its second edition, after a very successful start last year. Its purpose is to present the best of the best - or, at the very least, a good slice of the top quality art that is currently on the market. One of the great pleasures of Frieze Masters, this year more than ever, is the accidental confrontations the event manages to set up.

Scottish painter June Redfern interviewed by Livvy Anson for CV Journal in March 1990. The artist discusses her methods and approach, with sources of inspiration for her work.

Anyone who Googles the phrase curatorial theory will immediately come upon quite a long list of suggested websites. Sometimes it is a little difficult to be sure if the texts offered are intended to be taken entirely seriously. However, if I hack my way through the dense thickets of language, I find myself in agreement with what they seem to be trying to say, which is that curating an exhibition - or for that matter, a website - is not an end in itself.

Clare Lilley, head curator of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, gives an interview to Cv/VAR in which she describes her own career path to the YSP and gives a detailed description of the history, aims, and initiatives of Britain's largest environment for contemporary sculpture, with special projects involving artists such as David Nash, James Turrell, Jaume Plensa, and Anthony Caro.

This is an interview by Sarah Batiste with textile and ceramic artist Paramjit Takhar recorded in 1989. Here, Paramjit explains the spiritual aspects of colours, with essays on the history and influence of Mogul painting.

Dr. Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund, gives an interview to Cv/VAR, first published in Curators and Collections Volume Three 2010. He describes the history of the Art Fund, its foundation, aims and initiatives, and work as a major benefactor, enabling museums and galleries to preserve and develop their collections, including recently discovered treasure troves, and individual works saved for the future.

Seven days in Funchal on the Island of Madeira. Journal notes of the settings, locations, and personal stories in diary entries.

This study explores the work of celebrated artist Tracey Emin, exhibited at Turner Contemporary in Margate Kent. It reviews the figurative studies and neon calligraphic scultpures.