DAILY NEWS, VIEWS, REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS
CRITICS' PICKS, OPENINGS, YOUR VIDEOS, YOUR BLOGS

Highlights in London this month and coming up in December include new works by Clunie Reid (below), Miroslaw Balka's Turbine Hall installation, new paintings by Katy Moran, Olivia Plender's narrative on Britishness, a survey of video work by Dara Birnbaum, GSK Contemporary 2009 at the Royal Academy, and an exhibition of three major international sculptors: Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois and Alina Szapocznickow. ... read more...

The winner of the October Saatchi Online Studio competition is Benkosasih. Saatchi Online contributor, Rebecca Geldard, comments: 'Benkosasih's bold layering of digi-realm scenography and print-like motifs encourages multiple abstract and figurative painterly readings.' The Saatchi Gallery will donate £500 to a children's hospital around the world chosen by the winner. ... read more...

The winner of the September Saatchi Online Studio competition is Bahja Choy. Saatchi Online contributor, Lupe Nunez-Fernandez, comments: 'Choy's work manages to achieve an immediate, sophisticated sense of space with the barest of means.' The Saatchi Gallery will donate £500 to a children's hospital around the world chosen by the winner.

Rebecca Geldard selects form the autumn highlights in London, including Neal Tait at White Cube, Keith Tyson at Parasol Unit, Rosalind Nashashibi at the ICA, Paul Carter at Matt's Gallery, and upcoming shows for heavyweights John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha.

Fondation Cartier, hot on the heels of the Grand Palais's international tag-fest, unveils its summer blockbuster: 'Born in the Streets: Graffiti". Paris seems an entirely fitting city for an exhibition on the evolution and influence of graffiti writing, once the European centre of political protest - think of the poster imaging and poetic street sloganism that emerged out of the 1968 riots. ... read more...

Solo shows for Andrew Mania, Eva Rothschild, the Raqs Media Collective and Alice Channer, plus a survey of young painters at the Whitechapel and a vibrant summer group show at the Vegas Gallery.

I doubt any visitor in their right mind was expecting flags and whistles at this year's Art Basel given the current economic climate. And I guess one should perhaps salute the organisers' sensitivity in not crowing about the original art fair's significant milestones reached - the 40th anniversary of the event itself and the 10th year of Art Unlimited - in light of the number of gallery comrades who have fallen in recent times. But really, the low-lit wholesale outlet atmosphere of the Messe's m... read more...

In May make sure to see solo shows by Thomas Nozkowski, Matthew Burrows, Saul Fletcher and Tobias Rehberger plus an exhibition about the photograph as a 3-dimensional object; while in June Tracey Emin will be showing new drawings, the ICA will present an exploration of text-based art practices post-1960, and at the Hayward you can step inside the mental landscapes of, among others, Thomas Hirschhorn, Keith Tyson and Yaoi Kusama. ... read more...

To coincide with an exhibition at the newly relocated Hotel gallery in London, the German artist Michael Bauer talks here with fellow artist and writer Stefanie Popp about his paintings, which Rebecca Geldard in her recent review on Satachi Online described as: "tribal and vital, their compromised physicality appearing as if partially crafted out of the spare drips wiped from the edge of history's dipping pot. It's not really people that spring to mind when taking them in, rather the temporary s... read more...

Among the exhibtions not to be missed if you're in London in March and April are Lindsay Seers's multi-perspective account of the mental decline and eventual disappearance of her stepsister following a bike accident (below); the sublime tarry-dark paintings of Michael Bauer; German artist Thomas Helbig's first solo show in London; Klara Kristalova's folkloric response to the everyday in porcelain objects; a major solo show for American artist Ellen Gallagher; Mark Wallinger's exploration of bord... read more...

Morgan Falconer, one of Saatchi Online's regular New York correspondents, discovers a genuine environmental poetic in 'After Nature' at the New Museum, while for Rebecca Geldard, our London correspondent, Gail Pickering's film 'Hungary! And Other Economies' made six-degrees-of-separation poetry out of cliched theatrical and unscripted human gestures.

In the year of his come back, Keith Coventry opens a solo show at Haunch of Venison this week; also in London this month are solo shows by Ian Wallace and Katy Grannan; and a series of group shows inspired by, respectively, Moravia, image appropriation, pattern and geographical borders, featuring the work of the London-based Ghanaian artist, Larry Achiampong (below). ... read more...

Clegg and Guttman are showing new sculptures constructed with musical syncopation in mind; musical scores also play a part in Louise Hopkins' new show, but this time they are distorted using paint and collage; assemblages of a politically provocative nature by Gabriel Kuri; Hardy-esque vistas by Sam Taylor-Wood; the first retrospective of Donald Rodney's work following his death in 1998 aged just 36; Edward Fornieles' take on consumer society; Phillip Allen's appropriation of design motifs and p... read more...

Rose Eken, in her construction of model worlds and video scenarios, unpicks the processes through which certain sites or pop-cultural objects have become embedded within the collective consciousness. The Danish-born, London-based artist's open appropriation of familiar imagery, whether of Elvis' grave or a period interior, acknowledges the inevitable disparity between one's memory and the physical reality of a given thing or place, but most importantly, the notion of authenticity as a corruptibl... read more...

The winner of the October Saatchi Online Studio competition is Pixo Hammer from Toronto in Canada. Rebecca Geldard, Saatchi Online London correspondent, comments: 'I like the deft linear quality of Pixo Hammer's mutant Jellybaby society, which brings to mind the hiphop graphics of Keith Haring and the dystopic cartoon narratives of Mrzyk & Moriceau.' The Saatchi Gallery will donate £500 in the artist's name to a children's hospital of his choice. ... read more...

Don't miss the chance to see inside John Latham's home, recently opened to the public; plus solo shows for heavyweights Richard Serra and Gerhard Richter; Mark Leckey, Cathy Wilkes, Goshka Macuga (below) and Runa Islam in this year's Turner Prize show; and a group show inspired by smoke.

The winner of the September Your Studio competition is Esther Yva from Bonn in Germany. Anthony Haden-Guest, Saatchi Online correspondent, comments: 'Esther Yva's drawings remind me of the works of Egon Schiele. I'm amazed that something so sophisticated can be created online.' The Saatchi Gallery will donate £500 in the artist's name to a hospital of her choice. You can create now your entries for the October Your Studio competition, the winner of which will be announced on Friday 31 October. ... read more...

Tony Oursler projects fluid and flesh onto canvas; Susan Collis presents her exquisite 3-dimensional drawings (below); Roger Hiorns transforms a condemned black of flats for the latest Artangel commission; new stand-out paintings by Phoebe Unwin; a group exhibition operating around the notion of the sideshow; and more monochromatic sculptural installations by Banks Violette. ... read more...

A solo show by Sarah Morris inspired by the Olympics, a choc-box of an exhibition on love at the National Gallery, Esther Stocker's black Gaffer Tape installation at Museum 52, a show curated by artist Ryan Gander at Tate Britain, an exhibition of work by the 16 artists in the original 'Freeze' show curated by Damien Hirst, Jason Dodge's sculptural props at Gallery One one one, plus paintings by Serbian artist Milena Dragicevic. ... read more...

Matthew Higgs' bibliophilic tendencies remain key to his playful deconstruction of well-worn art concepts. His latest series of framed book pages, though ripped irreverently from multiple sources, has evolved out of his discovery of the 1965 contemporary art guide: 'Art is to Enjoy', by Donald Walton. Higgs re-presents familiar abstract forms and textual instructions to agitate the ideological borders that separate art from other objects and maker from author. But the faux-pompous staging of thi... read more...

On in London this month are solo shows by American artist Tom Friedman and British Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum, new work by Brian Griffiths (below), films by young British artist Gail Pickering, work by six Russian artists with a dark satirical sensibility, an exploration of the technology of sound by Aura Satz, a double bill of Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman and Scottish sculptor Anya Gallaccio, and a chance to revisit the work of American pioneer animator Mary Ellen Bute who arrived on t... read more...

Not to be missed in London this month - eye-poppingly vibrant canvases by Fiona Rae (below), animations by Nathalie Djurberg, a new public commission by Idris Khan, a major retrospective for Cy Twombly, Wolfgang Tillmans' latest series of photographs, the premiere of a new film trilogy by Jesper Just, artists taking on architecture in 'Psycho Buildings', Maria Kheirkhah's 'The Psychology of Fear', a chance to see Richard Prince's paintings, photographs as well as his private collection of art an... read more...

Among the shows not to miss in May are: Tim Renshaw's abstract paintings that push the boundaries of what might constitute an image; American artist Paul P's London debut; Isa Genzken's critique of contemporary consumption; Tal R's strict pictorial dimensions and palette; the launch of the ICA's six-month programme of exhibitions and events, 'Nought to Sixty'; and a survey charting the urban history of photography. ... read more...

Highlights from the shows currently on in London - Jaime Gili (below) at Riflemaker which closes today, Ryan Gander at South London Gallery, Inka Essenhigh at Victoria Miro, Paul Morrison at Matt's Gallery, Steve Van den Bosch at Alexandre Pollazzon, and a group show inspired by the writings of Edgar Allen Poe at White Cube. n

Not to miss over the next month in London are solos shows by Alison Wilding, Lucy Skaer, Roni Horn, group shows featuring Christian Ward (below), Francis Upritchard, Carl Andre, plus the last show at Modern Art's Vyner Street premises before the gallery moves to the West End.

Approaching the surface of a Peter Doig painting is a tense experience. In certain cases fear prompts speculation that the sumptuous epic description, at distance, may not live up to expectation close to, or in others, quite the opposite: sublime details within murky glades and candy mountain slopes serve as a means of re-entry into disorienting vistas. The major tension in any of the eight rooms designated for this extraordinary survey, however, is undoubtedly that between Doig's figures and th... read more...

On in London this month are solo shows by Lawrence Weiner, Jenny Holzer, Derek Jarman, Roman Signer and Cornelia Parker, plus a debut for emerging artist Agathe Snow (below) and documentary filmmaker Gerry Fox who takes over Anita Zabludowicz's project space with his films of London.

Rebecca Geldard selects the shows on in London this month not to miss, including David Shrigley (see taxidermied cat piece below entitled 'I'm Dead'), an exhibition of over 70 emerging painters, Juan Munoz at Tate Modern, art that has a sense of humour at the Hayward, Artists Anonymous's Gaffer-taped grotto, drawings by Chilean artist Sandra Vasquez de la Horra, Dan Rees's ping-pong tournaments, and new films by Darren Almond at the Parasol Unit. ... read more...

Gregor Muir (below), director of Hauser and Wirth, London chooses Paul McCarthy's exhibition at SMAK in Ghent, artist Goshka Macuga picks Klaus Weber's The Big Giving at Herald Street, London, and Rebecca Geldard, Saatchi Online magazine contributor and freelance writer, singles out Armen Eloyan's solo show at the Parasol Unit in London.

There are so many important and good works within this exhibition on the ways in which photography has influenced the past 50 years of painting it would take a cold and visionless soul to exit the Southbank uninspired. As much as these paintings reveal about the nature of the time-based beast many also allude to the socio-political history of the periods in which they have been made and the possibilities and limitations of paint in describing the real. Also on the magazine today is a video tour ... read more...

The 21 open crates filling the majority of the space at 52-54 Bell Street contain large (215 x 75 x 20cm) blocks of human excrement. Though the press release clearly states that the aforementioned crap has degraded to the extent of "being harmless from a sanitary point of view", evolutionary instincts tinkle like politely muffled bells in the back of the mind during close negotiation of each sculptural form. ... read more...

Photoquai, Paris's first biennale dedicated to photography, is a truly ambitious event given that the museum has only just celebrated its first year in operation. Recognising the lack of a platform for art being produced beyond the major Western countries, the organisers have focused on photography and video emerging from the countries represented in the museum's own collection - Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. This major international relations offensive connects many of the museums and... read more...

Trees ripped and rent from the ground litter the forest floor in man-made trenches like the victims of a violent eco war; a cloud hovering over a single, remaining tree appears like a nuclear mushroom on the build - Adams' photographs offer a stuttering, repetitive ride through the issue of the age - ecological imbalance.

Rebecca Geldard's selection of exhibitions up this month include solo shows by John Stezaker (below), Kay Harwood, Serban Savu, Callum Innes and Anri Sala, plus group shows featuring new paintings by Miho Sato, Nadine Feinstein and Ansel Krut.

'The title - 'Oyster Grit' - has materialised from the midst of organisation and pre-conceptualisation of the event. Does this describe a moment of perceptual surety interrupted, perhaps, or the point of fracture between the idea and phenomenon of an experience? The visceral quality invoked by these two words together - the glottal hike that might result from detection of a small, calcified speck within the viscous briny swallow of shellfish - enables (in the context of looking) a temporary rift... read more...

In galleries, museums, bus shelters and at dinner parties across the capital the current talk is of art fairs - namely being present for and planning navigation of the upcoming "Frieze week". There is little doubt that Frieze is the 'Optimus Prime' of the transformative art fair scene having created a yearly international moment for art in London and provided fertile creative ground for a rash of satellite events. The shadow cast by this art calendar giant has actually served to provide protecti... read more...

Not to be missed this month - Larry Achiampong's assault on the way Britain is failing its Black youth, Sarah Sze's staggeringly complex sculptures, Simon Periton's paintings on glass, video and photographic works by th elate feminist and body art pioneer Hannah Wilke, Tacita Dean's 'Wandermüde', a collection of films and painted photographic imagery, and Matthew Barney 'Drawing Restraint' series of films and related works (below). ... read more...

Banksy and Warhol go head to head at The Hospital, a last chance to see Simon Bill's egg-shaped painterly investigation into heraldic geometry, the notorious Russian/American duo SuperM expose the media, corporate and governmental ills, Michael Stevenson's reconstruction of the Central Bank of Guatemala's lost 'Moniac' (read on to find out what that is!), Juneau Projects' folkishly customised drum kit, and Keith Arnatt's hilarious and poignant record of messages left pinned to the fridge and oth... read more...

Until its re-launch this year, Bristol arts organisation Spike Island had become a fixture on the UK art map predominantly for its international residencies. Now, after a substantial face-lift following a £2.25 million redevelopment grant secured by architects Caruso St John, the space is capitalising on its strong relationship with artists to expand its exhibition programme. The jewel in the crown of their summer triple bill in the revamped space - which features a collaborative video commissi... read more...

John Baldessari's 1960s poster girl, a visual trigger and now advertorial for this conceptually tight show, beams coquettishly over the top of a James Joyce biography. The girl's smile suggests this might not be her usual reading matter, but that she really couldn't care less what anyone thinks. The poster, printed with the instruction and title of the show 'Learn to Read', neatly reflects our assumptions about the relationship between image and text - in this case to assign a social stereotype ... read more...

'Klever Strasse', the high-art, low-tech territory created by Tom Ellis at London's MOT gallery, is not completely out of the realms of fiction for it already exists as a geographical site in the German city of Düsseldorf. This sense of fracture between reality and fantasy is the conceptual crack from which Ellis's imaginary principality has emerged. The separate painted and constructed elements of Klever Strasse exist between states: irreverence and homage; appropriation and invention; functio... read more...

Solo shows this month by Zadok Ben David, Arturo Herrera, Paul Morrison, Muntean/Rosenblum, Armen Eloyan, Peter Lewis, Marcus Coates, Josh Blackwell, plus two arresting group shows on Vyner Street at David Risley and Nettie Horn featuring, respectively, Donald Judd, Marcel Dzama, James Castle, and Debbie Lawson and Annie Attridge.

No photographs of Jeff Koons' larger than life brand new paintings at Gagosian can be taken. Nothing new, perhaps, given the legal complexities of author/ownership and reproduction, but in this case it's apparently because they are not yet finished. The catalogue is waiting to be printed and despite this very public invitation to view, the 'opening' night is still days away. Every evening, after the gallery closes, a team of skilled painters continue to tinker with this imposing set of works, wh... read more...

The sun beats down on Basel-land, partially absorbed by a giant buttplug-wielding dwarf obscuring the entrance to the main event, Art Basel. Happily for the hosts, if sadly for the rest of the nations signed up for this section, the art successometer ratings are lead by Switzerland's own Christoph Büchel, with another extraordinary installation of man-made junk dominant in defining the political mood of the show, while providing a necessary means of escape from art-fair reality. ... read more...

David Cotterrell takes a long view of the political structures that define society yet his poetic manifestations often communicate the intimacy of one-on-one engagement. Critical of Western definitions of historical facts, Cotterrell poses specific questions about the delineation of public territory and classification of personal status. From Shanghai to Hull, his chosen sites and ambitious multi-media interventions force him to challenge his own take on other people's histories and the suitabil... read more...

Anything less imposing than German artist Thomas Schutte's giant sculptural manifestations would be dwarfed by the recently unwrapped 650ft Frith Street space on Golden Square. For in gallery terms this is something of an architectural coup, given the possibilities afforded by its impressive dimensions and central Soho location. In terms of making a statement one might easily presume 'the bolder the better' to be the resident mantra at camp Schutte - rarely has the female form felt more brutally... read more...

Josef Strau in Vilma Gold's new spaces offers 'a rather messy mix of photos, wall texts (some confessional, some critical, some in German, but all in an impossible font size designed to annoy the most loyal viewer)', while at MOT an exhibition entitled 'YouTubism' tackles the theme of self-promotion, and at Transition a group show 'pulls flora, fauna and all things folksy through a dark, morally ambiguous hedge - backwards'. ... read more...

Anya Gallaccio treats organic objects as though they were vessels protecting kernels of human sentiment. The cycle of growth and decay provides an earthy backdrop to her minimal sculptural manifestations that require maximal effort to make. In her current exhibition she continues her investigation of materiality and the formal constraints of sculptural presentation in a series of sock-like constructions, giant macramé 'drawings' and delicate casts of fruits and fauna. ... read more...

Dirt, in the biological sense of the word, may be the substance from which natural life springs, but not in John Holland and Fiona MacDonald's synthetic vision of horticultural hell. Their 'abused' painted and constructed landscapes fuse the theatre set, the still life and the Victorian garden in a mutant historical pastiche of the pastoral experience, as described in art, literature and lifestyle editorial. Crudely preserved creatures and pimped-down superheroes proliferate these darkly comic h... read more...