Wild Thing - Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska and Gill at the RA
Can't stand Gill's work, not just because he was a horrible human being, but I loved Gaudier-Brzeska who was so young and talented (tragically killed in WW1 early on) and seeing Epstein's Rock Drill was breath-taking. I loved that this sculpture had a story too - mechanistic and all-powerful before the war, and then mutilated and cut down to size afterwards.
Degas at the Royal Academy, bien sûr. When you see his art replicated on posters and postcards it tends to look a bit anodyne and pretty-pretty. When you see it live, it is powerful. He was so innovative, this show was all about painting movement, but there is something very tender and sympathetic about his pictures of women. If you haven't ever seen it, go and check out the pastel picture in the National Gallery of the woman drying her back after a bath, it will knock your socks off.
OH MY GOD I got to see Egon Schiele, hero of my youth, nude drawings in a tiny gallery in Bond Street. They didn't take card payments for the catalogue though, boo. * Very sexy, very exquisite draughtsmanship. If I'd had a few thousand quid knocking around I would definitely have bought one. * though you can download a colour pdf of it from the site, which is very generous.
Ghosts of Gone Birds at the Rochelle School. Beautiful, varied exhibition of many artists, on the theme of extinction. Really saying something.
Gerhard Richter at the Tate Modern. So analytical, so intellectual, but still somehow full of emotion. The paintings of 9/11... There's just something about his work. And how does he do that blurry thing? How?
Toulouse Lautrec (and Jane Avril) at the Courtauld. God, this was a great year for seeing the work of my heroes live and direct. Plus from a printmaking point of view it was fascinating and inspiring, as he did so much lithography and graphic style work.
Private Eye 50 years at the V&A - one tiny room of brilliant cartoonists and covers, I loved the reconstruction of the editor's desk piled up with stuff.
Swoon, Murmuration at the Black Rat Press. An alive artist to admire, hurrah. (My photos here.) Though it is strange to see her work in gallery, it suits the streets better.
Left me cold...
Postmodernism at the V&A. Maybe appropriately for the subject, this was a bit of a nothing exhibition. They should have just stuck with the clothes and the graphic design.
A couple of shows at the Saatchi Gallery. There's good, bad and indifferent there, but it's an experience similar to going around Tesco's.
My tips for this year:
Hockney at the RA.
David Shrigley at the Hayward
Picasso at Tate Britain
The Mystery of Appearance at Haunch of Venison - Bacon, Auerbach, Freud, Hockney, etc etc...
And coming soon... ELP at the V&A and the Westfield in Stratford. Watch this space...
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