Art

We went to see the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition at the Tate Modern last year. At the time, I didn't know much about her, other than the fact she was famous for painting flowers. And that people get a bit hot under the collar about what those paintings might represent. Was the art world of the 1920s and 1930s so repressed that it managed to get into a lather about some paintings of flowers? And more importantly, are they any good?

Mira Schendel was a Brazilian artist who was active throughout the middle to late twentieth century. She is considered to be one of South America's best artists. Known mostly for her abstract paintings, she also experimented with sculptures and installations. Many of her works use text and semiotics to explore and define possible meanings for more abstract works.

I have mixed feelings about this show. On the one hand, I like that there are depictions of working class Britain on display and I feel that it is right that these paintings are considered part of the British cultural canon. I also like that a lot of these paintings represent large gatherings of people, which are absent from a lot of what we might call the mainstream of art.

Today I went with a friend to see Tate Britain's "Art Under Attack" show. It's an interesting, if uneven, affair that entertains but doesn't quite succeed in everything it attempts to do. The big word that you learn is iconoclasm: the act of attacking an object believed to represent particular beliefs. The show splits into two parts: ideological acts of iconoclasm committed against works of art in Britain and the work of British artists who embrace iconoclasm as a means for making art. The first half (comprising more than half of the show - because I lump together two of the shows sections "Religion" and "Politics" into this half) is more interesting and successful than the second ("Aesthetics").

Ellen Gallagher is an American artist and her "AxME" show recently finished at the Tate Modern. I went along a few weeks ago and have only now had a bit of time to write up my thoughts.

Ibrahim El-Salahi is a modernist artist from Sudan. I believe this exhibition is a first for an African artist at the Tate Modern. Much like the Choucair show (which is still on everyone!), it's an engaging but too short introduction to an interesting artist that you have probably never heard of.

Today I went to see "George Bellows 1882-1925 Modern American Life" at the Royal Academy of Arts. It's the first time I've been to the RA but I was emboldened by my art pass and the fact that Bellows was a contemporary of Edward Hopper, a painter whom I admire greatly. This is the first major retrospective of Bellows' work in the UK and taking in his wonderful paintings this afternoon, I felt a little embarrassed that I hadn't seen anything of his before.

Yesterday I went to see the Saloua Raouda Choucair show at the Tate Modern. As it was quite small, I went to see the Lichtenstein show again as well.

This was a show that I had put off going to see for quite a while now. Looking online at the pictures featured in the show did not really excite me enough to get out and see it. I'd seen Whaam! before in isolation (it's part of the Tate collection and will no doubt return once the retrospective show is over) and it didn't really grab me, arresting as it is. However, with plenty of free time this week it was an ideal time to go see it and I was happy to be proved wrong.

I have had a lot of ideas for posts swirling around in my head in recent days. This is because I have actually done quite a lot of cool things in that time, and because I have hung out with some great people who make me think, and because I always have a whole load of things bouncing around in there anyway - space junk of the mind. I was thinking about how to put together these thoughts I have been having about art and about stories and yes, about love too. It all kind of got muddled up and then I saw it.