VIDEO: Talking Art, Books, Films etc on The View in 2011
Posted on | December 12, 2011 | No Comments
1931 portrait of Frida Kahlo (with self portrait in background) by Lucienne Bloch. See The View 12 April 2011
The View 22 November 2011
On 22 November 2011, poet Theo Dorgan, columnist Brenda Power and I discusssed the film, My Week With Marilyn, the documentary Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey, the exhibition Modern Languages at the National Craft Gallery in Kilkenny and Umberto Eco’s novel The Prague Cemetery. Watch the whole show, or links to each item discussed here.
The View: 20 September 2011
On 20 September 2011, Irish Times online editor Hugh Linehan, author and National Women’s Council Director Susan McKay and I discussed Willie Doherty’s show Disturbance at The Hugh Lane Gallery as part of Dublin Contemporary 2011, along with the documentary Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times, the play The Yellow Wallpaper at Smock Alley, Dublin and the novel On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry on The View click here to watch the show or play each of the items discussed individually.
The View 12 April 2011
On 12 April 2011, novelist and playwright Declan Hughes, comedian and writer Kevin Gildea and I discussed the films Meek’s Cutoff and Little White Lies, the exhibition Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Masterpieces of the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and Ed O’Loughlin’s novel Toploader. You can watch the show or select an individual item discussed here.
The View 14 June 2011
The Critics Have Their Say: On 14 June 2011, RTÉ Television’s The View arts review show broadcast a special panel discussion on the role of the critic: The Critics Have Their Say. I was on the panel, along with Liam Fay, Sinéad Gleeson and Hugh Linehan. You can watch the show here. There is some discussion about this show on my website here.
Tags: Art Criticism > Diego Rivera > Frida Kahlo > National Craft Gallery > Role of the Critic > Willie Doherty
200 words: on Rivane Neuenschwander at IMMA
Posted on | December 7, 2011 | No Comments
Rivane Neuenschwander, I Wish Your Wish
Whether in a series of glue rings left to materialise as they get grubby on the gallery floor or in her film The Tenant, in which a soap bubble silently “explores” an empty house, Neuenschwander’s work is more about quiet observation than big statements.
Her ex-voto paintings of empty rooms turn a traditional form of narrative painting into a modern meditation on absence, while her hole-punch collages, One Thousand and One Possible Nights, are carefully calculated to appear accidentally sublime.
She often takes a collaborative approach and although her collection of Involuntary Sculptures made by others from napkins and matchbooks during bar conversations amount to so much table detritus, she does make two catchy calls for further audience participation.
I Wish Your Wish (above) invites gallery-goers to remove a wish printed on a ribbon and add their own in its place, while visitors who describe their first love to a police sketch artist may find their old flame added to future versions of the show.
Rivane Neuenschwander – A Day Like Any Other is at Irish Museum of Modern Art until 29 January 2012.
200 words: on Michael Cullen, Paintings from Sierras de las Nieves
Posted on | December 7, 2011 | No Comments
The enormous canvas that stood out at this year’s RHA Annual Exhibition has an upstairs room to itself in Cullen’s latest show of otherwise small, colourful paintings of southern Spain.
Studio Scene with Elephant: Study after Velázquez is like a brainstorming session that has miraculously resulted in a comprehensible whole idea. It rewards study precisely because of its exhilarating jumble of imagery. Picasso and Van Gogh are also among Cullen’s influences, but his real tribute here is a geographical one.
He translates the red tiles, blue shadows and sun-bleached walls of Málaga into eye-popping street scenes, including Moorish Arch and Morning, Casarabonela. Interior with Still Life and Peaches, with its morning cuppa and copy of Cervantes, is typical of the mood of the show, but Cullen does best when he avoids cliché as in the moon-lit Nocturne, Casarabonela or Study: Interior, Midday, a studio scene enlivened by dynamic angles.
With endless vistas of orange mountaintops, yellow fields and blue skies, these hot, bright compositions are, like holiday snaps, mementos of a happy, sunny time.
Michael Cullen – Paintings from Sierras de las Nieves, Málaga is at Taylor Galleries until 10 December 2011.
