Your Reviews...
Shows you like - or don't

GILLIAN AYRES AT 80 : NEW PAINTINGS AND WORKS ON PAPER

ALAN CRISTEA GALLERY, London

Can someone explain why these works are being exhibited? They really look like a 4 year old could do them. I am not the type of person who shouts at the telly, but this is BAAAAAD.

LIONEL SCOCCIMARO : PHOTOGRAPHS

ALEXIA GOETHE GALLERY

I liked the work here, funny old people, "sexy" models and people surfing, they were like Richard Princes, odd and funny.

RYAN MOSLEY

ALISON JACQUES GALLERY

I found the works too muddy for my liking, I want something glitzy, bright and interesting, this was none of those.

Micheal Landy

SLG, LONDON

The Landy in the work, makes me think about it longer..I can't really work out if this is a good piece of art. Physically yes, it is a bit of a beauty, but art bins, art rubbish, makes me cringe a bit. Still will be interesting when it is full to the brim!

Oh! art gallery

UNUSUAL VIEW LAUNCH

Inspired idea, which is for a workthy cause, should be more places like this.

NICHOLAS BYRNE : A CATHOLIC EPISODE

Vilma Gold

I liked these works they don't demand too much, magically subtle but not snore boring.

WADDINGTON GALLERIES GROUP SHOW

WADDINGTON GALLERIES

I like this gallery, very conservative but kinda like a mini museum. Big names. Like it!

LILLIAN BASSMAN : LILLIAN BASSMAN

The Wapping Project, London.

Passable photographs from fashions big photographer. I found little interest beyond, oh-yeah-thats-nice type thoughts.

MIKE BALLARD : THE ALL OF EVERYTHING

The Arts Gallery, University of the Arts London

The end of the gallery. What a fitting way, to celebrate the end to plaster it wall to wall, filling every nook and cranny, with loud black swirling designs.

PATRICK HUGHES : PERFECTSPECTIVE

flowers, Cork Street

Perfectspective, is just like the title, over thought and essentually meaningless.

Danielle Kwaaitaal - Studies of Falling Angels

Torch Gallery, Amsterdam

Wow, what Lovely delights. Magical infact.Commanding works from this artist.

For the blind man in the dark room looking..

New Exhibition Venue 'de Appel Boys' School

A new chance to see the slippery celebration of curiosity and speculation.

Versions

nimk.nl,

A wondeful collection that reflects on our new world online. Contemporary and necessary.

MAGALI REUS

IBID, LONDON

Captivating, is not a word I would usually use, but these had a rhythmic coolness that reels you in. Pleasing, more please.

In a dark room.

ICA

I thought that they work was very contemporary, but also this is confusing and I don't like this about art sometimes. Big names were impressive I liked Peter Fischli & David Weiss.

LES CHOSES PERDUES GROUP EXHIBITION OF PAINTING

VEGAS GALLERY, LONDON

The works really got lost in there, in other words there was no synergistic logic to showing the works with each other. Just having a vague 'painting' link was frankly annoying, and undermined the reach of the works.

AK DOLVEN : THE DAY THE SKY BECAME MY GROUND

Wilkinson Gallery, London

Subtle works here, if your in a busy mood with a lot of galleries to see you might just forget it, but still a nice break from the hustle and bustle outside!

Matthew Barney

SADIE COLES HQ

Don't expect a blockbuster. An exhibition of drawings from - the master - is a little dissapointing if you have been following MB for a few years, his exhibition at the serpentine was loads bigger and loads better.

Young Contemporaries

Browse & Darby

Four painters representing great, good, bad & indifferent respectively - a candy coloured mixed bag saved by Haddon's captivating micro landscapes.

Where Three Dreams Cross

The Whitechapel Gallery

150 years of powerful and eloquent photography from India, Pakistan & Bangladesh, challenging 150 years of Orientalism with a celebratory - but unflinching - knock out blow.

Crazy God

Diemar/Noble Photography

With an abandoned psychiatric hospital as it's subject - De Rosa's haunting photographic study bravely risks the familiarity of the imagery of empty space and succeeds as an evocative, thorough & expressive chamber piece.

CIPRIANO MARTINEZ : DISLOCATION

Maddox Arts, London

Where did the creatives go? Mild paintings which would look nice in IKEA. (Yawn!)

Justin Mortimer

MASTER PIPER, LONDON

The works vary quite bit in quality, the ones that were better are the ones that steer away from heavy imagery (not rocks silly!). So so.

MATIAS FALDBAKKEN SHOCKED INTO ABSTRACTION

IKON GALLERY, BIRMINGHAM

The work was strong it suited the style of the ikon gallery, very direct and masculine. Enjoyed the exhibition.

JEREMY MILLAR PROJECTOR

Ikon, Gallery Birmingham

I thought this was very poor show and the use of mirrors was just annoying. We know more than this!

JOSH BLACKWELL

KATE MACGARRY, LONDON

This show was silly and charming, one of those you shouldnt't take your family too, they just wouldn't get it.

DAMIEN ROACH. SHIIIN, JET STREAM, WHITE EARPHONES

DAVID ROBERTS ART FOUNDATION FITZROVIA

A top exhibition, multilayered yumminess. Worth and look, and a second.

Yvonne De Rosa.

DIEMAR / NOBLE PHOTOGRAPHY

Spooky photographs of a closed down hospital. Yawningly average.

Robert Voit

Amador Gallery, NY

The photographs are nice enough, but there is a lot of this style out there, and it doesn't really say that much more or different from anything else.

The Perpetual Dialogue

Andrea Rosen Gallery, NY

kinda like a muted form of pop art, this exhibition has strong design credentials, and excellent use of colour, with a reserved nature that is welcoming.

BLANE DE ST. CROIX - MOUNTAIN STRIP

Black & White Project Space, NY

Brilliantly silly (in a good way) The Black & White Project Space, is really pushing the boundaries with its work, they are perhaps most famous for their outdoor works. I loved the show.

CANDIDA HÖFER : IN ITALY

BEN BROWN FINE ARTS, London

I wonder if the places are more interesting than the photographs, if so what does that mean? What are we looking at? Is it purely documentary? Then why is it art?

If you could collaborate

A FOUNDATION, LONDON

Challenging the way that artists work - If you could collaborate - brings together 33 pairings. An awesome undertaking. Great stuff peeps!

Last Orders at the Bar: The Demise of the Great British Pub

Surface Gallery, Nottingham

I thought this was a lovely little exhibition, reminded me of the work of Martin Parr et all. fab!

The Meaning of Style

The new Art Exchange Nottingham

Some very, very cool photos in here, loved the work and the new, Art Exchange is a great building and should be seen in its own right.

Nobuyoshi

Takaishii Gallery, Tokyo

“2THESKY my Ender” 2009, a pretty collage with black and white photography is surrealistic but enjoyable. We don't have to walk through a field of ironic references, it is clearly an enjoyable process for the artist, and the viewer, which should be applauded.

Tsuyoshi Tane (DORELL.GHOTMEH.TANE / ARCHITECTS) “sur-impression”

Takaishii Gallery, Tokyo

Brilliance is in the design of this, working with architects to create art is often troubling, but the selection is wise, and adds another bow to the gallery.

Elisa Sighicelli

Gagosian, Madison Ave

I think the sense of deja vous with this work is over whelming, the backs of signs, abstracted building shapes. Well made - but over cooked ideas.

ORI GERSHT : PLACES THAT WERE NOT

MUMMERY + SCHNELLE, LONDON

Looking forward to Gersht’s photographs! His work capture ideas of memory, history and identity but also challenge the very nature of photography...GREAT!

FOR THE BLIND MAN IN THE DARK ROOM...

ICA, LONDON

I thought this one was very nice indeed, a big mix of work made for a enjoyable visit...bravo!

LARISSA NOWICKI : IN WAITING

MAN&EVE

Messin' with words, is a bit of a staple diet for the art scene, easy to do - 'heavy' in references, and of course a bit scupltural. A cheese sandwich of an exhibition.

Charlotte Hodes: Silhouettes and Filigree

MARLBOROUGH FINE ART, LONDON

A bit out of my taste these pots (philistine I know!) has something about them that I liked, funny, and strange.

KEN EASTMAN : OUT OF PLACE

MARSDEN WOO GALLERY

Amazing exhibition, I would recogmmend everyone to see it! it out of my price range i am sure (i only student! LOL)

Anthea Hamilton

IBID, london

This junk must men something to someone? I really dont understand what you can gain from bits of random cr*p thrown together. Very bad. Where have all the artists gone?

EDUARDO PAOLOZZI. FORTY PLASTERS

(online exhibition) JAMES HYMAN GALLERY

A yawningly boring artist's work rephotographed and made ever so slightly more interesting, but only just.

ELINOR CARUCCI. INTIMACY

JAMES HYMAN GALLERY, London

There was a suprising photograph of an exceedingly happy pregnant woman, which was kinda strange, usually kept heavily underwraps it was nice to see nature at work!!! LOL

MARK TANSEY

Gagosian, 6-24 Britannia Street

Blue, photgraphs a that are blue. Paintings that are made from photographs that are blue, (are you bored yet?) Throw in a couple of art refs for good measure and you have a the practice of Tansey. hmmmm, pass.

Abstract Painting (906-8), 2008

Marian Goodman Gallery

Gerhard Richter, a man of many conflicting words. I don't like abstract art made in the last 20 years but I do like these, strangely, annoyingly!

Sharon Lockhart

Gladstone Gallery, NY

Grubby - Clean - Grubby - Clean. The exhibition contrasts the two extremes of the garage and the exhibition, exposing the quirks of each, and the formulas of each. Fascinating!

Alighiero e Boetti

Gladstone Gallery, NY (530W 24th Street)

Individually the works didn't do that much, but as a collection the maps turn into pleasing patterns. Worth a look.

London Art Fair

Business Design Centre

the 13th of Jan sees the opening of the London art fair. Is it just me or is opening an art fair in January when it is not only cold but the poorest month a bit odd? Maybe art collectors work on a different calendar?

For the blindman in the darkroom

ICA, London

ICA, pull another great exhibition out of the bag. It is appealing because of its humour and it's reach, from a Nashashibi/Skaer collaboration back to anonymous 16th century illustration of a Wunderkammer. Featuring: anonymous, Dave Hullfish Bailey, Marcel Broodthaers, Sarah Crowner, Mariana Castillo Deball, Eric Duyckaerts, Ayse Erkmen, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Rachel Harrison, Giorgio Morandi, Matt Mullican, Bruno Munari, Nashashibi/Skaer, Benoît Maire and Falke Pisano, Jimmy Raskin, Frances Stark, Rosemarie Trockel, Patrick van Caeckenbergh and David William.

Ghetto Biennale

The Island, Basement, 96 Teesdale Street, E2 6PU

There is something fantastically patronising about a thing called 'Ghetto Biennale' - yes, really. The attempt here is to 'disrupt conventional art scene exclusions', I get the sense that it, just like a real 'Ghetto' reinforces social boundaries.

PAINTINGS IN THE SKY

KATE MACGARRY

Featuring the work of Dan McCarthy, Keegan McHargue, Florian Meisenberg and Luke Rudolf. Meisenberg's hanging flag like works were refreshing and fun, and added a nice counterpoint to the rewarding wall based works.

ROBERT KUSMIROWSKI : BUNKER

BARBICAN ART GALLERY & THE CURVE

The enjoyable part of this was the theater of it all, perhaps a bit Mike Nelson, you are not transported anywhere and for all its serious intention seems a bit silly.

Dan Flavin

David Zwirner

What can you say? It's like a museum show, big bold and known. I liked it but, I also like baseball and icecream! It is like the artist is as regualar as the materials he used.

Jeff Koons - New Paintings

456 North Camden Drive Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Simply titled, new paintings, it is such an understatement!Some how more fluid more abstract than the Koons we are used to. Yes, lots of sex, and nature (which is sex anyway), but there is more to this show - a deeper koons.

DOUBLETAKE

Emma Hill Fine Art

I thought the big birds were scary but brilliant. The works on the wall were also pleasing to the eye.

Richard Wilson sculpture, Square the Block

London School of Economics New Academic Building, Kingsway

Collapsing buildings are at the forefront of our minds, bombs on buildings, buses, trains and planes. This had both this current reference plus* a cracking sort of aesthetical formalism. As if caught in slow motion, the corner of the builing crumbles - 10/10, you old trickster.

works/projects

Contemporary Art Society.

Rotate - pass the curatorial buck over...stroke of genius! This Rotate with Works/Projects from Bristol, is another excellent show. MORE, MORE, MORE!

STUART HAYGARTH

HOF, LONDON

banal and overlooked. Is anything these days banal and overlooked? After upturning the modernist boat is there anything left that can really be called Banal and Overlooked? I would suggest that we are in the age of the amateur, the lo-fi and the niche. The 'Banal' and 'Overlooked', is the main currency of post-modern thought within art - Duchamp, Warhol etc. Making this a very average show.

Hans Josephsohn Outdoor Sculpture

HAUSER & WIRTH

Maybe it was the weather, but I drew a total blank when looking that the work. It looked like the type of sculpture that you get in museums in action films, that get blown to smithereens, a sort of art pastiche.

ED RUSCHA : FIFTY YEARS OF PAINTING

HAYWARD GALLERY, LONDON

Ed Ruscha (Said Ed Roo-shay for your information)is from that set of american male artists, uncompromising, masculine, and damn attractive, even in thier later years (Nauman and Smithson fit this too). The show at the Hayward is a good, what else could it be?

KLAUS WEBER : BEE PAINTINGS

HERALD ST, LONDON

Bee Paintings, are actually made up of Bee droppings. The works seem very sixties or eighties - when wee wee and poo poo were all the rage to make art out of, I am think here if Warhols metal wee paintings or Piss flowers by Helen Chadwick. Nice enough but a bit out of date.

MARY MACLEAN AND CAMILLA WILSON : MIREI

Unit Two, London

The work is of a reasonable quality, but drowns in its own waffly over-conceptualisation.

MAHARAJA : THE SPLENDOUR OF INDIA'S ROYAL COURTS

V&A, London

So over the top in every way, great objects, images and moustaches, this exhibition has it all, fit for a king.

GROUP EXHIBITION : SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

HAMILTONS GALLERY, London

Setting itself up for a fall 'Something for everyone' is of course, all over the shop, feeling a bit like Woolworths before it's demise. Yawn.

School of Saatchi

BBC Two

It must be very difficult to be so young and have so much pressure on you to make work, and make mistakes, on TV. It would be interesting to see an artist who plays with the notion of celebrity...which is sort of the elephant in the room.

MARK WOODS TO HAVE TO HOLD

Wapping Project, London

I love the work of Mark woods, it made me feel a bit dirty like I had been to a seedy bar. Keep up the good work Mark! x

DAMIEN HIRST : NOTHING MATTERS

White Cube.

Actually your wrong DH, things do matter, and bad paintings don't make you better. It has the same feeling of when major celebs scrabble around trying to find a sense of self through some sort of wonky religion. DH is doing it through painting, because painting by hand = being more real, more honest. The only thing here is that it is honestly, really, rubbish.

SOPHIE CALLE: TALKING TO STRANGERS

White Cube

I think this is some of the strongest work I have ever seen. I thought it was magical, intelligent and...fun! Amazing, will try and visit again.

DAVID BLANDY : FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE

176 / ZABLUDOWICZ COLLECTION

What does authentic experience mean? what is an inauthentic experience? I found the work rambles a lot, and a bit esoteric for my liking. Liked Blandy's otherwork.

School of Saatchi

BBC Two

I was quite unimpressed. My uncensored opinion of the last episode of School of Saatchi can be found here: http://theartupstart.com/2009/12/17/the-final-school-of-saatchi/

Alex Olson and Lisa Williamson

Shane Campbell Gallery,Chicago

Though Williamson appears more concerned than Olson with color and three-dimensional space, her sculptures and collages come off as similarly reductionist. The pieces on the floor, subtitled Bed, Roll and Floor Plan, compress their subjects into simple pieces of cut paper laid atop thin sheets of wood. More potential meanings cram into This Mouth, a wall-mounted collage of pink paper that splits at the bottom, revealing two red inner folds. Its racy ambiguity shows less really can be more.

Mark Tansey

Gagosian, London, UK

Overall this is a show that packs a lot of clever stuff about perception and meaning into a handful of handsome works.

Roger Hiorns - Seizure

Artangel at Harper Road, 151-189 Harper Rd, SE1 6AE

If you didnt get to see the sulphate crystalised council flat the first time around , this is your last chance to get a look. It is open until Jan 3rd, and is still as amazing as it was previously.

MIKE KELLEY

Gagosian, 555 West 24th Street New York, NY

After a short bout of pointing and snickering, I tried to view the works in a more mature way, hoping to understand their cultural significance in the context of Art (note the emphasis). Or maybe I just wanted to know why people were willing to spend 100-600k on these garish pictures. The gallery catalogue didn't help much: "Evoking painting as a series of experiences akin to the movie camera gliding through space, capturing action as it goes, Kelley has devised a spatial push-pull effect through the arrangement of large polychrome panel paintings and smaller framed canvases." Really? I smell BS. Take out a few words here and there, and they'll have vaguely described the entire history of painting. Or how about this: "the small framed paintings on canvas[...]operate like windows in the gallery walls, punctuating the spatial parameters set up by the larger panel paintings." Not exactly groundbreaking. My own intellectual shortcomings aside, I didn't get ANY of this from the show. What I did get was a pretentious gallery-sanctified carnival: clusters of bright colors and sensational images goading us to run around looking for the next freak in the show. And I enjoyed it for just that. It's lowbrow-as-highbrow entertainment; trying to read anything more into it is like having a degustation at McDonalds.

Peter Fischli and David Weiss

Matthew Marks Gallery, NY

Fantastic work again guys! These big hitters have one show across three galleries, this one entitled Sun, Moon and Stars at 522 W 22, is a phenomenal undertaking. As if looking at culture from the future. Fantastic.

Peter Fischli and David Weiss

Matthew Marks Gallery, NY

At 523 W 24, we can see Clay and Rubber, these one's didn't grab me as much, they are funny and oversized, but I didn't have an 'oh yeah!' kinda moment.

peter Fischli and David Weiss

Matthew Marks Gallery, NY

at 526 W 22 Street, Rat and Bear can be seen. I really want to know what this one is all about! There are no ways in on this one. Rat and Bear, maybe it has something to do with Chinese new year? Could it be a comment on communism, sleeping Communism? I am stumped.

NEW EDITIONS & ACQUISITIONS

ALAN CRISTEA GALLERY, London

The Boo Ritson works are inspired! love the pop art references too.

JAGANNATH PANDA : THE ACTION OF NOWHERE

ALEXIA GOETHE GALLERY, London

I had a great time with this artwork, it is much fun and there is many different angles in which you can take a look with the work.

SUZANNE TREISTER : MTB [MILITARY TRAINING BASE]

ALMA ENTERPRISES

Perhaps trying to do too many things this exhibition-residency-artwork-video thing is a brave curatorial choice, which should be appluded

JON THOMPSON : PAINTINGS FROM THE TORONTO CYCLE

ANTHONY REYNOLDS GALLERY, LONDON

Like very expensive wall paper. Conceptually sparse, utter drivel.

PETER DAVIES : THE EPOCH OF PERPETUAL HAPPINESS

The approach, London

Must be a real toughy trying to follow up superstarf**ker, my most fave painting in the world (no, really). This show is of course a bit of a let down. Poor fellow.

ANISH KAPOOR

ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS, London

One of the more interesting artists of his generation, always surprising, witty, and has an ability to spot things that others miss. 10/10

DONALD TESKEY LOOPS&SIDINGS

Rubicon Gallery, Ireland.

Hopper did it better. The paintings are good in the main - if we think of "good" being well painted. But even the colours in the painting lack a bit of drive, and I am not talking simply brighter, they lack that ability to reverberate in the eyes, which was Hoppers forte. Dark against light.

PROJECTED LANDSCAPES

ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION, LONDON

Nov 7 - Dec 12, 2009 Photography by Aaron Shuman, Caroline Molloy, Corinne Silva and Kate Peters. The highlight of the show - Aaron Schuman’s series, Once Upon a Time in the West, rephotographs sets from Westerns - humorous and brilliant.

THE OBJECT OF THE ATTACK PART II

david roberts art foundation, london

In a call and respond style, Object of the Attack is set in relation to Sculpture of The Space Age. It manages to draw out multiple directions, which Sculpture of The Space Age couldn't do on its own. It is quite a unique way of dealing with particular works of art. Yes, I loved it.

‘Larissa Nowicki, 'In Waiting'’

Man & Eve

Book Art. Why is it always about the physical nature of a book? Incredibly conventional work that has little real imagination.

Turner Prize

Tate Britian

Enrico David, Roger Hiorns, Lucy Skaer and Richard Wright. I thought that they were all god ,but I am glad that the work of Richard Wright won.

BLOOMBERG NEW CONTEMPORARIES

A Foundation, Club Row, Rochelle School

A good selection by Ellen Gallagher, Saskia Olde Wolbers, John Stezaker and Wolfgang Tillmans. My fave was Adam Bainbridge, subtle thing I think. Great to see so much young talent, well done people.

GSK CONTEMPORARY : EARTH : ART OF A CHANGING WORLD

6 Burlington Gardens

It's a bit of a fever at the moment big shows of artists, massive art fairs, something bubbles away in me, and i just want to see a couple of pieces shown really well.

Baggage Reclaim: David Theobald

Prussian Projekte

A great exhibition for this young space, brilliantly shown artwork. CGI and funny, how often do you hear that?

Postcard exhibition

Surface Gallery

The exhibition is as good as a postcard exhibition can be, 100's of handmade postcards, some dainty, some dull, some great. So the exhibition was good-bad!

PEARLSTEIN / HELD: Five Decades

Betty Cuningham Gallery

The nude reinvigorated, beauty is here again, it is wonderful to see real painting again. A must see.

Sasha Bezzubov & Jessica Sucher

Daniel Cooney Fine Art 511 West 25th Street, #506 New York, NY 100

Two people taking one photograph! Which one does what? Do they both press the button at the same time?!! Loved the images how ever they are made.

Michael Joo

Anton Kern, NY

I love this gallery space, and I love the work Joo, it is complex and difficult, funny and appealing all at the same time. Collectively the works have a magic pull together. 10/10

Mark Leckey - Parade

Nottingham Contemporary

Mark Leckey produces humorous, and acutely observed works of art. Parade is one his most well known pieces. A joy to see again.

ALASTAIR MACKINVEN : ABSTRACT CAPITALIST REALISM

Hotel, London

The first criticism of the work is that it is a reflection on art and makes the work a bit of an insiders joke. Still the works are playful in their approach, i just feel a little queazy when people reference Hirst.