Say ‘Ukraine’ to most people west of there and you’ll likely hear ‘Russia’, ‘Crimea’, or maybe ‘Chernobyl’ in quick succession. Maybe ‘burgeoning film scene’ more than ‘grains’, or ‘faded grandeur’. Remnants of all of these and more are to be found in a formal art scene, a post-modern figurative and abstract neo-avant-garde tradition. Saatchi Gallery and…
Review
Art Under Attack: Saints to Suffragettes
Aimee Rubensteen
Today the avant-garde artist is praised. The more original (and sometimes visceral) the work of art, the more interest it generates both inside and outside the gallery. “Image-breaking” is nothing new. Since the nineteenth century, the progression of an art movement has always depended on a dialogue between artists and protesters, both rebelling against the…
Review
Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art
Hannah Roke
Three rooms, spilling with awkward gasps and giggles, exhibit the British Museum’s current show Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art. Curated by Tim Clark, the exhibition presents a collection of the sexually explicit Japanese art of Shunga, which dates from 1600 to 1900. Shunga, an intimate and often perhaps comical form of erotic artwork,…
Review
The Young Dürer: Is the Guardian’s negativity warranted?
Oliver Mitchell
Guardian reviewer Jonathan Jones awarded the Courtauld Gallery’s current exhibition a single star. The display having left me suitably impressed, I thought an alternative perspective was necessary. I’m not exactly sure what Jones was anticipating when he went into an exhibition entitled The Young Dürer: Drawing the Figure, the stated aim of which is an…
Review
Art Outside the Gallery - #3 Art on the Underground
Mollie Witcombe
The relationship between the art world and the London Underground is long and established. In 1908, publicity officer of the Underground, Frank Pick, commissioned leading contemporary artists to work on a poster campaign, setting a precedent for an artistic future. Recently, the drive to create “world class art for a world class Tube” has grown…
Review
For the Love of Money
Mollie Witcombe
In an age where celebrities are snapped at Miami Beach art fairs, Damien Hirst can put a diamond-encrusted scull on the market for a cool £50 million, and Sheikha Mayassa has an annual £1 billion budget to improve her Qatar art collection, it is difficult to ignore that art often goes hand in hand with…
Review
Art Outside the Gallery - #2 Public Art
Anna Tomlinson
The constant generation and regeneration of street art places London’s public art at the forefront of the contemporary scene, while also working to commemorate the past by highlighting existing statues and architecture. In the previous issue of The Smoke, Tom Mouna took us on a tour of the graffiti of Brick Lane, commenting on its…