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Critic's Choice: Top Five Exhibitions
By Hephzibah Anderson, Evening Standard 24.08.06
Setting a new standard: Dinos Chapman's papier maché pig at the ICA
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A host of big-name artists show some highly unrepresentative pieces at ICA and a choice selection of Constable landscapes at Tate Britain. Hephzibah Anderson looks at five great art exhibitions...
Surprise, Surprise
ICA, SW1
Anish Kapoor, Cindy Sherman and Damien Hirst are among the 40 big-name artists who've contributed to the ICA's cheeky summer show. While there aren't any surprises in the roll call, each artist is represented by a highly unrepresentative piece. Peter Doig seems to have dabbled in neoexpressionism, Rikrit Tiravanijia has submitted a sculpture that looks like a mini-Rachel Whiteread, and Dinos Chapman went through a youthful papier machÈ phase, fashioning a small pink pig from Evening Standards dating back to 1970. (020 7930 3647). Until 10 September.
Albert Oehlen: I Will Always Champion Good Paintings
Whitechapel Art Gallery, E1
While the art world fell into a giddy embrace with conceptualism, this German-born artist looked to the likes of Gerhard Richter for inspiration, and began exploring the process of painting through paint itself. He's been championing his medium for some 30 years, but his first major UK exhibition focuses on work created since 1988, bringing together epic abstracts, allusive collages and computer-generated images. (020 7522 7888). Until 3 September.
The London Fire Brigade Archive
Photographers' Gallery, W1
An astonishing 300,000 photographs make up this melancholic and previously unseen archive of documentary evidence. It reaches back to the Brigade's foundation in the 1860s, though the carefully culled selection on show here dates mainly from 1930 to 1970. There are images of the 1936 Crystal Palace blaze and the 1958 fire at Smithfield Market. Most haunting are the domestic fires - a blackened living room, a child's bedroom, images whose tragic significance is all too easily imagined.(020 7831 1722). Until 17 September.
Modigliani and His Models
Royal Academy, W1
In contrast to the refined beauty of his paintings, Amedeo Modigliani's life story is a sad, squalid tale of self-destruction and ill health, exacerbated by drink, drugs and restlessness. It culminates in his death in Paris in 1920, aged just 35. With mixed results, this show seeks to refocus attention on the work itself, bringing together more than 50 nudes and portraits of friends and lovers. (020 7300 8000). Until 15 October.
Constable: The Great Landscapes
Tate Britain, SW1
This weekend is your last chance to see this scintillating exhibition, which unites for the first time the supersize canvases that Constable submitted annually to the Royal Academy between 1819 and 1825. Together, these legendary six-footers present a sextet of views from along the river Stour, known to the artist since boyhood. Just as compellingly, they also illustrate his creative ambition. Shown alongside are the vital oil sketches that preceded each painting. Marvels in their own right, they cast him as an avantgardist, grappling with art's essential questions. (020 7887 8008). Until 28 August.
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Constable's landscapes are inspiring and in these current days of computer graphics you realise just how talented he needed to be to produce such magnificent paintings. You get to see the oil sketches that were the beginnings of each final canvas and the views of the countryside are what England is all about.
- Jonathan, Camberwell
