Category: Editorials

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 Concern has been expressed from museums that visitors are not returning quickly enough following recent extended closures. No wonder if the main galleries in Manchester are typical of the rest. At the Whitworth and City Art Galleries, which although distinct institutions now share the same director, activists have replaced curators and scholarship has… Continue reading Dark Clouds On The Horizon

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER, 2021 I took a wrong turn on my bike recently near Russell Square and came upon Wallis Gilbert’s 1931 Daimler car hire garage in Herbrand Street. Set back almost hidden, and only yards from where I attended university, I had never suspected its existence. It now pleases me so much I regularly detour past… Continue reading The Mound In Your Pocket

MARCH/APRIL 2021 Nothing much happened last year in the visual arts. The usual suspects promoted themselves with yards of trivia, usually about the NHS, but nothing serious was made except by those conventional sorts who go quietly about their business. National galleries tried to fill the gap by selling us ‘virtual’ and ‘digital’ ‘experiences’ by… Continue reading 2020 Blindness

JULY/AUGUST 2025 Across two weekends in April 160 artists in York, a city with a population smaller than Islington’s, opened their studios and homes to the public. A useful 60-page colour booklet with a detailed map locating participants was published to coincide with the event. Then, in June, again over consecutive weekends, 209 artists in… Continue reading Will The Game Be Up For The Arts Council?

David Lee Sept/Oct 2021 I took a wrong turn on my bike recently near Russell Square and came upon Wallis Gilbert’s 1931 Daimler car hire garage in Herbrand Street. Set back almost hidden, and only yards from where I attended university, I had never suspected its existence. It now pleases me so much I regularly… Continue reading The Mound in Your Pocket

David Lee July/August 2021 The National Gallery has prostrated itself before what Orwell called  ‘the official mind’. It must have done because the less said about Rosalind Nashashibi, their current artist-in-residence, the better … but don’t worry I’ll bore you anyway. She is exhibiting her recent efforts among the 17th century Spanish pictures to which,… Continue reading Let’s Pretend

Across the last 30 years the narrative of official Contemporary Art has unfurled like a Chinese scroll. We can follow how, from around 1990, those commercial techniques pioneered to manufacture reputations by Charles Saatchi were adopted as a template by other speculators eager to cash in. This was the start of a racket which turned… Continue reading Joy Labinjo: Led To The Market

David Lee March/April 2021 Nothing much happened last year in the visual arts. The usual suspects promoted themselves with yards of trivia, usually about the NHS, but nothing serious was made except by those conventional sorts who go quietly about their business. National galleries tried to fill the gap by selling us ‘virtual’ and ‘digital’… Continue reading 2020 Blindness