Latest news with #SoniaBoyce
The Guardian
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Thin Black Line legends return, William Kentridge dazzles and Van Gogh meets a modern – the week in art
Connecting Thin Black Lines: 1985-2025 Claudette Johnson, Sonia Boyce and Ingrid Pollard are among the artists in this show that revisits their 1985 exhibition, The Thin Black Line - curated, like the original, by Lubaina Himid. ICA, London, until 7 September William KentridgeThe South African artist shows new film and sculpture in a dazzling, inspiring display. Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, from 28 June until 19 April 2026 Kiefer/Van GoghAnselm Kiefer brings out the dark Romantic in Van Gogh, as death stalks the fields. Royal Academy, London, from 28 June until 26 October Resistance Steve McQueen selects photographs of protest and collective action from a century of alternative British history. Modern Two, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, until 4 January 2026 Jim LambieOne of the most hedonist artists around shows paintings and objects that pop with colour. Modern Insitute, Glasgow, until 27 August Dennis Morris got his first cover shot at the age of 11. By 14, he was touring with Bob Marley (who taught him how to smoke). And he has spent the rest of his life chronicling Black British experience, now showing in a major new exhibition. Read our full review A 300-year-old painting at the Uffizi was damaged by a visitor taking a seflie Norman Foster's 'wasteful' Queen Elizabeth II bridge emits 'Swarovski vibes' We looked back at the fascinating 50-year history of Save Britain's Heritage PhotoEspana, Spain's premier photo festival, got under way in Madrid and elsewhere The Belfast photo festival explored 'the Biosphere' The late US artist Sam Gilliam's time in Ireland inspired a wild burst of creativity A small group from the Northern Territory went on to dominate Australia's art Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion Much-loved painter David Gentleman shared tips William Kentridge's restless inventiveness rivals that of Picasso Cornard Wood near Sudbury, Suffolk by Thomas Gainsborough, 1748 Gainsborough made his fortune painting the Georgian elite in Bath and London - 'pickpocketing the rich', as he called it – and is often unfairly thought of as a frilly portraitist of the posh. But here he portrays ordinary folk on a piece of common land near his birthplace, the Suffolk town Sudbury. Common land was a medieval tradition that provided wood, grazing and the equivalent of a modern park for the entire community. But commons were gradually 'enclosed' from the Tudor age to Gainsborough's time as villages became increasingly unequal and wealthy farmers and landowners developed more capitalistic farming practices. Gainsborough is making a radical, nostalgic last-ditch defence of a vanishing world in this painting. His common people enjoy the land under a superb canopy of auburn trees and silvery clouds – a beautiful glimpse of this land as it might be. National Gallery, London If you don't already receive our regular roundup of art and design news via email, please sign up here. If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@
Times
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Connecting Thin Black Lines review — the invisible women of British art
The Thin Black Line, at the ICA in 1985, was a modest landmark. Curated by the artist Lubaina Himid (who was appointed OBE in 2010 and won the Turner prize in 2017), the exhibition focused on a group of black and Asian British female artists and represented a challenge to their collective invisibility in the art world. As Himid described them, 'eleven of the hundreds of creative black women in Britain', barely acknowledged by the artistic establishment. This new ICA show, again curated by Himid, brings together works made by those same 11 women in the intervening decades, highlighting their connections — the photographers Ingrid Pollard and Brenda Agardappear in Claudette Johnson's imposing painted triptych, for example — and indicating the accuracy of Himid's remark in 1985, 'We are here to stay.' Several of the artists have risen to prominence in recent years. Sonia Boyce represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2022; in the same year Himid was the subject of a big exhibition at Tate Modern and Veronica Ryan won the Turner prize. Johnson was the only painter nominated for it last year; Chila Kumari Burman, whose exuberant neons stealthily explore stereotypes and perspectives of Britishness, has a new large-scale commission at the Imperial War Museum North until the end of August. This ought to feel like a triumph, a victory lap. So why doesn't it? • Read more art reviews, guides and interviews Partly because this show is not big enough. It's true that, taking the main gallery on the ICA's ground floor, it's an improvement on the original 1985 show. That occupied only the corridor (euphemistically described as the 'concourse') that leads from the entrance on The Mall to the bar — much to the chagrin of the artists, who quite reasonably felt they were still being marginalised; the title of the show was a wry nod to this. • Turner prize winner 2024 — Jasleen Kaur's car in a doily is a new low But having seen shows extended into the airy galleries upstairs on Carlton House Terrace, it was still a bit disappointing to find this occupying so bijou a space. I didn't know the work of Jennifer Comrie, whose striking pastel and collage drawings are weird and compelling, and would have liked to see more of it. There's just one sculpture by Ryan, a bit tantalising, a bit lost. Sulter's Zabat series, of nine photographic portraits of black women as muses of the arts from Greek mythology, have power individually, but a bigger selection — there's just one Polyhymnia (Portrait of Dr Ysaye Barnwell) — would be even more impactful. Here we all are, it says, still making work, still complex and exciting, still almost none of us recognised names outside the art world — a frustration acknowledged by Himid in the accompanying guide. But it doesn't have room to say much more than that, to expand our knowledge of these artists beyond reminding us they exist. How much has changed, really? ★★★☆☆ICA, London, Jun 24 to Sep 7, Follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews
Spectator
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Why is the National Portrait Gallery's collection so poor?
The recent announcement that the National Portrait Gallery has purchased two works by Sonia Boyce and Hew Locke for its collection came as something of a shock. The surprise? The art was actually good. Boyce's quarterised collage 'From Someone Else's Fear Fantasy (A Case Of Mistaken Identity? Well This Is No Bed Of Roses) To Metamorphosis' (1987), reminiscent of an enlarged and doodled upon set of passport photographs is a complex work of art made better the more attention you give it; Locke's maximalist approach with the bust 'Souvenir 17 (Albert Edward, Prince of Wales)' (2024) may not be to everyone's taste, but his sculpture is full of humour and pathos. Both artists are serious and rightly lauded, and though British audiences aren't exactly bereft of opportunities to see what they get up to – well represented in the Tate and other public collections as they are – this may be a sign of optimism for the NPG under the new leadership of Victoria Siddall. Before you all go rushing to Trafalgar Square however, be warned that the majority of the stuff that currently fills the museum is still complete dross. Previous missives from the press office, since the institution reopened after a refurbishment in 2023, have trumpeted a loan of a grimly kitsch portrait of Sam Smith, borrowed from the singer himself (imagine the ego behind hanging a scantily clad portrait of yourself dressed as an angel in your home); a sixth-form daub of civil-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell (at least the sitter this time is of some historic merit); and a partnership with Snapchat soliciting selfies. It seems extraordinary that the government forks out more than £10 million a year for this. To put it into perspective, since 2010, local councils have been forced to cut their library and culture spend by half and the British Council, which stages exhibitions globally and is vital for the country's soft power, may have to sell off much of its vastly superior collection to service a debt to the government. The National Portrait Gallery's quality control came under scrutiny recently after it staged – under the leadership of Nicholas Cullinan, now director of the British Museum – an exhibition of work by photographer Zoë Law.
