Aligherio Boetti: Aerei 1989 1989 Courtesy of Carmignac Gestion Foundation © Aligherio Boetti, DACS 2011

One of the most influential Italian artists of the twentieth century, Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994) will be the subject of a major exhibition at Tate Modern in spring 2012. Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan will be the first large-scale retrospective of Boetti’s work to be held outside Italy in over a decade highlighting his often playful exploration of numeric, linguistic and classificatory systems, as well as his engagement with the people and politics of Afghanistan.

Boetti has most commonly been associated with the Italian Arte Povera artists of the late 1960s. While this exhibition begins with his Arte Povera objects made from everyday materials, including Stack 1966 and Little Coloured Sticks 1968, it also reveals his early scepticism about art movements through such works as his mock Manifesto 1967. In the late 1960s Boetti began to explore the figure of the artist, showing how it embodied the dual roles of divine shaman and public showman. He went on to represent himself as a pair of twins and change his name to Alighiero E Boetti [Alighiero and Boetti]. Alongside these early self portraits, the exhibition will also include the late Self-Portrait 1993, a life-size bronze cast of the artist spraying his head with a hose, never seen before in the UK.

Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan will highlight Boetti’s engagement with geopolitics and his travels to Ethiopia, Guatemala and Afghanistan. In 1971 Boetti set up the One Hotel in Kabul and began to work with local craftswomen to create large embroideries. The most famous of these were the Mappa, many of which will be brought together at Tate Modern. These world maps, in which each country is coloured with its national flag, record political change across the globe from 1971 to 1994, charting the independence of African states and the break-up of the USSR. The exhibition also explores the ways in which Boetti worked with exiled Afghans to articulate their political ambitions during the years of the Soviet occupation.

Boetti’s lifelong fascination with games, numbers, words, dates and sequences will also be a focus, evident in works such as Dama 1967, which uses a chequerboard pattern to evoke an absurd domino-like game, and Ordine e disordine 1973 which comprises 100 multicoloured word squares randomly arranged on the wall. The exhibition will feature several biro drawings in which Boetti’s favourite phrases are encoded, the embroideries The Thousand Longest Rivers in the World 1978 and The Hour Tree 1979, and a set of rugs from 1993 whose patterns are based on numeric systems. The exhibition will also look at Boetti’s collaborations with young people, including jigsaws based on watercolour paintings of aeroplanes, counting books made with his daughter, and grids of faces which were completed by children.

Alighiero Boetti was born in Turin in 1940 and moved in the early 1970s to Rome. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions including at the Kunsthalle Basel (1978), Galleria CIvica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin (1996) and the Whitechapel Gallery, London (1999).

Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan is curated at Tate Modern by Mark Godfrey, Curator, Tate Modern with Kasia Redzisz, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern. This exhibition is organised by Tate Modern, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, where it will be shown from 5 October 2011 to 5 February 2012, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, where it will travel in Summer 2012.

Exhibition dates: 28 February 2012 – 27 May 2012

Tate Modern

Sumner Street,

Bankside,

London SE1 9TG

Tel: 020 78878752

Sunday – Thursday, 10.00–18.00

Last admission to special exhibitions at 17.15

Friday – Saturday, 10.00–22.00 (10.00–18.00 on Friday 23 and Saturday 31 December)

Last admission to special exhibitions at 21.15

Open as normal on Bank Holidays.

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Martin Creed Work No. 890, DON'T WORRY 2008 Yellow neon: 20 in / 50.8 cm high Installation at Hauser & Wirth London, London, UK 2009 © Martin Creed Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Photo: Mike Bruce

ARTIST ROOMS returns to Tate Liverpool in 2012, displaying seven important new works recently donated by Turner Prize winning artist Martin Creed (b 1968) jointly to Tate and National Galleries of Scotland for the ARTIST ROOMS Collection.  Creed’s work was not previously represented in ARTIST ROOMS and he is the first new contemporary artist to join the Collection since it was established in 2008.

The artist has donated a group of seven works which will be shown together in Tate Liverpool’s Wolfson Gallery.  The works presented are in a range of different media including a neon installation, Work No. 890 (Don’t Worry) 2008, a twenty-one part drawing, Work No. 944 2008 and a recent series of four paintings from 2011.

Martin Creed Work No. 944 2008 Pen on paper: 21 parts, each 11.7 x 8.2 in / 29.7 x 21 cm; overall dimensions variable Installation at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK, 2008 © Martin Creed Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Photo: Stuart Whipps

The works to be displayed are taken from ARTIST ROOMS, an inspirational collection of modern and contemporary art established in 2008 by Anthony d’Offay who donated his collection to Tate and National Galleries of Scotland for the nation.  The ARTIST ROOMS tour, now in its fourth year, is showing at 17 museums and galleries across the UK in 2012. The tour is made possible thanks to the support of national fundraising charity the Art Fund which helps UK museums and galleries to buy, show and share art.

Creed was born in 1968 in Wakefield and grew up in Glasgow.  He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, and has exhibited extensively worldwide.  He won the Turner Prize in 2001 for The Lights Going on and Off.  He currently lives and works in London and Alicudi, Italy.

ARTIST ROOMS

ARTIST ROOMS exhibitions and displays are from the collection assembled by Anthony d’Offay. ARTIST ROOMS is owned jointly by Tate and National Galleries of Scotland and was established through The d’Offay Donation in 2008, with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund and the Scottish and British Governments. ARTIST ROOMS On Tour with the Art Fund has been devised to enable this collection to reach and inspire new audiences across the country, particularly young people.

The Art Fund

The Art Fund is the national fundraising charity, helping UK museums and galleries to buy, show and share art. It offers many ways of enjoying art through the National Art Pass which gives free entry to over 200 museums, galleries and historic houses across the country as well as 50% off major exhibitions. Over the past 5 years, the Art Fund has given £24 million to 248 museums and galleries to buy art. It also sponsors the UK tour of the ARTIST ROOMS collection – reaching several million people each year, and fundraises to help museums buys works of art. It is funded entirely by its 80,000 supporters who believe great art should be for everyone to enjoy. Find out more about the Art Fund and how to buy a National Art Pass at www.artfund.org.

Exhibition dates: 24 February – 27 May 2012

Tate Liverpool

Albert Dock

Liverpool

L3 4BB

Tel: 0151 702 7400

Entry is free except for major exhibitions

Open every day, 10.00–17.00

Suggested last entry to special exhibitions: 16:00

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Lubaina Himid: Between the Two My Heart is Balanced 1991 Tate © Lubaina Himid

Tate Britain presents an exhibition exploring how British art has been shaped by migration. Featuring artists from van Dyck, Whistler and Mondrian to Steve McQueen and Francis Alÿs, Migrations: Journeys into British Art traces not only the movement of artists, but the circulation of art and ideas.

Beginning with works from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the exhibition shows that much British art from this period was made by artists from abroad, including Antwerp-born Anthony van Dyck, the court painter whose famous portraits such as Charles I 1636 (The Chequers Trust)have come to shape our perceptions of the British aristocracy of this time.

Canaletto London: The Old Horse Guards from St James’s Park c.1749 Tate. Lent by The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation

It also explores the establishment of the Royal Academy, with works by the Swiss-Austrian Angelica Kauffmann, the Anglo-American Benjamin West and others who were fundamental to its foundation in 1768. Artists were involved in an extensive interchange of ideas between Britain, France and America in the late-nineteenth-century, as demonstrated in works such as John Singer Sargent’s Mrs. Carl Meyer and her Children 1896. Other important figures who marked the course of British Art include Piet Mondrian, Naum Gabo and Laszlo Maholy-Nagy, who sought refuge in Britain whilst escaping political unrest and war in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.

James Tissot: Portsmouth Dockyard c.1877 © Tate

Artists from the 50s and 60s who moved to the UK from the Commonwealth, conceptual artists who considered themselves ‘stateless’ global citizens rather than tied to any one place, and groups such as the Black Audio Film Collective, whose work sought to unearth the possibilities of being both ‘Black’ and ‘British’in the 1980s, show how British art has, directly or indirectly, come to reflect a much wider international stage over time.

Jacob Kramer Jews at Prayer 1919 Tate © Estate of John David Roberts: By courtesy of the William Roberts Society.. Photo: Tate Photography

The exhibition features recent work by contemporary artists who use the moving image as a versatile tool for both documenting and questioning reality, including Zineb Sedira’s fourteen screen installation Floating Coffins 2009 and Steve McQueen’s Static 2009, which probes ideas of freedom and migration through the potent symbol of the Statue of Liberty.

Over 500 years, developments in transport, new artistic institutions, politics and economics have all contributed to artists choosing to settle temporarily or permanently in Britain. Migrations examines how British art has been informed by a long and intricate history of the movement of people to and from the country, raising questions about the formation of a national collection of British art against a continually shifting demographic.

Migrations: Journeys into British Art is curated by a group of Tate curators headed by Lizzie Carey-Thomas (Curator, Contemporary British Art). The exhibition is accompanied by a book edited by Lizzie Carey-Thomas.

Exhibition dates: Tuesday 31 January – Sunday 12 August 2012

Admission 6.00 ( 5.00 concessions)

Tate Britain

Millbank

London SW1P 4RG

Tel: 020 7887 8888

Entry is free except for major exhibitions

Open 10.00–18.00, Saturday–Thursday

10.00–22.00, every Friday

Last admission to exhibitions 17.15 (Friday 21.15)

Late at Tate Britain on the first Friday of each month

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Shilpa Gupta: Singing Cloud, 2008 - 2009 Installation Object built with thousands of microphones with 48 multi channel audio, Audio: 9mins 30seconds

Shilpa Gupta creates artwork using a variety of media including video, objects, photography, sound and performances to examine such themes as desire, conflict, militarism, security, technology and human rights. Gupta’s application of technology in her works reveals her interest in how various media affect our understanding of the political realm. Considering technology as being an extension of body, mind and perception, she possesses a sharp political consciousness about the role, psychology and aesthetics of these media forms.

The exhibition will present new work alongside a key selection of works by Gupta from recent years, including her major installation Singing Cloud, 2008-09, an amorphous cluster of 4000 black microphones suspended from the ceiling. Rather than registering sound, the microphones are reverse-wired and emit sounds that travel in ripples over the surface, created through abstracting the results of psychological tests on numerous individuals about the reception of images.

Shilpa Gupta: Untitled, Photograph, 2006 Don’t See Don't Hear Don't Speak Series Printed on flex,120x72 in | 305x183 cm Digital Photograph on archival paper 25x42in | 64x107 cm

Shilpa Gupta is one of the most significant emerging artists working in India today, and this will be her first major solo exhibition in the UK.

Someone Else by Shilpa Gupta sees the launch of a year long series of exhibitions, film programmes, performance and special events entitled  A Parallel Universe – alternative realities and co-existing worlds.

Shilpa Gupta (b.1976) lives and works in Mumbai where she studied sculpture at the Sir J. J. School of Fine Arts from 1992 to 1997. Her work has been shown in at institutions including Tate Modern, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Daimler Chrysler Contemporary, Mori Museum, Guggenheim Museum, New Museum, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and Devi Art Foundation amongst many others. Her work is the collections of Daimler Chrysler, Mori Art Museum, Fukuoka Museum, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Kramlich Collection, Caixa Foundation, Fonds National d’Art Contemporain – France, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Deutsche Bank, Hauser & Wirth, Jerusalem Museum, and the Devi Foundation.

Exhibition dates: Sat 3 Mar – Sun 22 Apr

Arnolfini

16 Narrow Quay,

Bristol

BS1 4QA.

Open:  Tues – Sun, 11am – 6pm and Bank Holiday Mondays. Admission free.

16 Narrow Quay, Bristol UK BS1 4QA.

Tel: 0117 917 2300

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Sophy Rickett To The River, courtesy of the artist & Brancolini Grimaldi

Sophy Rickett’s new work To The River takes its inspiration from the Severn Bore – an amazing phenomenon of nature whereby a large tidal wave runs along the River Severn during the moon’s equinox. Rickett’s installation incorporates video and surround-sound audio, creating an immersive environment that portrays the anticipation of the crowd on the banks of the river at night awaiting the tidal surge.

Premiered as a part of Artsway’s New Forest Pavilion at the Venice Biennale this year, To The River develops Rickett’s interest in the role of the camera as a mediator between people and the natural world, and explores how light and darkness define and articulate our relationship to space. Predominantly using lens-based media – photography and video – she considers the abstract possibilities and narrative tendencies of these media formats.  Made mainly at night, her works are often minimal in character, playing on the latent narrative possibilities of place.

Sophy Rickett: Infra Lion © Sophy Rickett

Sophy Rickett lives and works in London.  She has had solo exhibitions at venues including De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill; Ffotogallery, Cardiff; Centre pour L’image Contemporain Saint-Gervais, Switzerland; and The British School at Rome, Italy. Her group exhibitions have taken place at venues including Centre Rhenan d’Art Contemporain, Alsace; Galleria Civica, Modena, Italy; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Il Museo di Trento, Italy.  Her work is included in many collections including: Centre Pompidou, Paris; Government Art Collection, London; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes; Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She is currently a visiting Artist Fellow at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, as well as Senior Lecturer on the MA photography course at the London College of Communication (UAL).

To The River previewed at Artsway’s New Forest Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale.

A publication, also entitled To The River, and featuring texts by Sacha Craddock and Barry Schwabsky accompanies the exhibition.  Copies will be available in the bookshop priced £12.99.

To The River is produced by Elena Hill in collaboration with Arnolfini and ArtSway.

Exhibition dates: Sat 3 Mar – Sun 22 Apr

Arnolfini

16 Narrow Quay,

Bristol

BS1 4QA.

Open:  Tues – Sun, 11am – 6pm and Bank Holiday Mondays. Admission free.

16 Narrow Quay, Bristol UK BS1 4QA.

Tel: 0117 917 2300

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Pablo Picasso The Three Dancers 1925 Tate © Succession Picasso/DACS 2011

Tate Britain  stages the first exhibition to explore Pablo Picasso’s lifelong connections with Britain. Picasso and Modern British Art will examine Picasso’s evolving critical reputation here and British artists’ responses to his work. The exhibition will explore Picasso’s rise in Britain as a figure of both controversy and celebrity, tracing the ways in which his work was exhibited and collected here during his lifetime, and demonstrating that the British engagement with Picasso and his art was much deeper and more varied than generally has been appreciated.

Pablo Picasso originated many of the most significant developments of twentieth-century art. This exhibition will examine his enormous impact on British modernism, through seven exemplary figures for whom he proved an important stimulus: Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland and David Hockney. It will be presented in an essentially chronological order, with rooms documenting the exhibiting and collecting of Picasso’s art in Britain alternating with those showcasing individual British artists’ responses to his work. Picasso and Modern British Art will comprise over 150 works from major public and private collections around the world, including over 60 paintings by Picasso.

Pablo Picasso Still Life with Mandolin 1924 © Succession Picasso / DACS 2011 © Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Picasso and Modern British Art will include key Cubist works such as Head of a Man with Moustache 1912 (Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris) which was seen in Britain before the First World War, when Cubism was first introduced to a British public through Roger Fry’s two Post-Impressionist exhibitions. It will also include Picasso’s Man with a Clarinet 1911-12 (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid) and Weeping Woman 1937 (Tate), works which were acquired by the two most notable British collectors of Picasso, Douglas Cooper and Roland Penrose, both of whom were to become intimately associated with the artist and his reputation.

While many British artists have responded to Picasso’s influence, those represented in this exhibition have been selected to illustrate both the variety and vitality of these responses over a period of more than seventy years. This is a rare opportunity to see such work alongside those works by Picasso that, in many cases, are documented as having made a particular impact on the artist concerned; in other cases, they have been chosen as excellent examples of a stylistic affinity between Picasso and the relevant British artist. For example, David Hockney is said to have visited Picasso’s major Tate exhibition (1960) eight times, starting a life-long obsession with the artist. A selection of various Hockney homages to Picasso will be shown. In addition Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion 1944 (Tate) will be compared with Picasso’s paintings based on figures on the beach at Dinard which first inspired Bacon to take up painting seriously.

The exhibition will look at the time Picasso spent in London in 1919 when he worked on the scenery and costumes for Diaghilev’s production of The Three-Cornered Hat. It will assess the significance of his political status in Britain, from the Guernica tour in 1938-9 to the artist’s appearance at the 1950 Peace Congress in Sheffield. The final section will also consider the artist’s post-war reputation, from the widespread hostility provoked by the 1945-6 V&A exhibition which re-ignited many of the fierce debates about modern art that first raged before the First World War, to the phenomenally successful survey of his career at the Tate in 1960.

After Tate Britain, the exhibition will tour to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. Picasso and Modern British Art is devised by James Beechey with additional contributions from Professor Christopher Green (Courtauld) and Richard Humphreys. It is curated at Tate Britain by Chris Stephens, Curator (Modern British Art) & Head of Displays, Tate Britain, assisted by Helen Little, Assistant Curator, Tate Britain.

Exhibition dates: 15 February – 15 July 2012

Tate Britain

Millbank

London SW1P 4RG

Tel: 020 7887 8888

Open 10.00–18.00, Saturday–Thursday

10.00–22.00, every Friday

Last admission to exhibitions 17.15 (Friday 21.15)

Late at Tate Britain on the first Friday of each month

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Yayoi Kusama 9 February 2012 – 5 June 2012 Kusama posing in Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show 1963 installation view, Gertrude Stein Gallery, New York 1963 © Yayoi Kusama and © Yayoi Kusama Studios Inc.

This exhibition will blow your mind. I saw a preview of the work on the culture show presented by Alastair Sooke and down to the Tate I did go. It did not disappoint and it proved again that art in the flesh is the only way to see art, so get yourself, if you can, to Tate Modern asap and in the meantime read on….

Yayoi Kusama’s (b.1929) pioneering work spans over six decades and this exhibition will highlight the artist’s moments of most intense innovation. Kusama is one of Japan’s best-known living artists and since the 1940s she has developed an extensive body of work. From her earliest explorations of painting in provincial Japan to new unseen works, the exhibition will reveal a history of successive developments and daring advances, demonstrating why Kusama remains one of the most engaging practitioners today.

Conceived as a series of immersive environments, the exhibition will unfold in a sequence of rooms, each devoted to the emergence of a new artistic stance. Much of Kusama’s art has an almost hallucinatory intensity that reflects her unique vision of the world, whether through a teeming accumulation of detail or the dense patterns of nets and polka dots that have become her signature.

Yayoi Kusama Yayoi Kusama 1965 Courtesy of Victoria Miro Gallery, London and Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo © Yayoi Kusama, courtesy Yayoi Kusama studio inc. . Photo: Eikoh Hosoe

She is renowned for her ‘environments’, large-scale installations of dazzling power that immerse the viewer. A highlight of the exhibition will be a new installation conceived especially for the show, Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life 2011, Kusama’s largest mirrored room to date.

Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Japan in 1929. In her early career she immersed herself in the study of art, integrating a wide range of Eastern and Western influences, training in traditional Japanese painting while also exploring the European and American avant-garde.

In the late 1950s, Kusama moved to the United States and during her time there worked tirelessly to position herself at the epicentre of the New York art scene. The exhibition will include a group of Kusama’s first ‘Infinity Net’ paintings from her early years in New York, canvases covered in endlessly-repeated, scalloped brushstrokes of a single colour. Kusama forged her own direction in sculpture and installation, adopting techniques of montage and soft sculpture which historians have seen as influencing artists such as Andy Warhol and Claus Oldenburg. The exhibition will include Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show 1963, her first room installation, and a significant selection of her classic ‘Sex Obsession’ and ‘Food Obsession’ Accumulation Sculptures dating from 1962-68.

As the 1960s progressed, Kusama moved from painting, sculpture and collage to installations, films, performances and ‘happenings’ as well as political actions, counter-cultural events, fashion design and publishing. The exhibition will include Kusama’s iconic film Kusama’s Self-Obliteration 1968, capturing this period of performative experimentation, and an extensive selection of archive material that reveal how Kusama’s artistic activity extended beyond the bounds of the gallery.

In 1973 Kusama returned to Japan where she continues to live and work today. The exhibition will include vibrant and evocative collages she created on her return, during a period in which she was also forging a parallel career as a poet and novelist. Major sculptural installations will be featured including The Clouds 1984, comprising one hundred unique black and white sprayed sewed stuffed cushions, and Heaven and Earth 1991, which features snake-like forms emerging from forty boxes. The exhibition will conclude with a series of works from the last decade including I’m Here, but Nothing 2000 -, in which a darkened domestic space is covered with fluorescent polka dots.

Yayoi Kusama Self-Obliteration No.2 1967 © Yayoi Kusama and © Yayoi Kusama Studios Inc.

Yayoi Kusama is curated by Frances Morris, Head of Collection, International Art, Tate with Rachel Taylor, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern. The exhibition has been organised by Tate Modern in association with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; the Centre Pompidou, Paris and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The exhibition will be accompanied by a major new catalogue and the first English translation of Yayoi Kusama’s autobiography Infinity Net.

Exhibition dates: Thursday 9 February – Tuesday 5 June 2012

Tate Modern

Sumner Street,

Bankside,

London

SE1 9TG

Tel: 020 78878752

Sunday – Thursday, 10.00–18.00

Last admission to special exhibitions at 17.15

Friday – Saturday, 10.00–22.00 (10.00–18.00 on Friday 23 and Saturday 31 December)

Last admission to special exhibitions at 21.15

open as normal on Bank Holidays

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David Hockney The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) Oil on 32 canvases (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm), 365.8 x 975.4 cm; one of a 52-part work Courtesy of the artist Copyright David Hockney Photo credit: Jonathan Wilkinson

You might better recognise this artist for his polished LA scenes of swimming pools and apartments, such as A Bigger Splash (1967), but the Royal Academy has managed to create a show that doesn’t contain a single one, choosing instead to focus on the vast genre of landscape. The title of this exhibition is nothing if not apt; Hockney’s work is produced on an ever-changing scale, but one that culminates in huge pieces that stretch across the gallery walls as paintings or videos and those that were dreamt up on a tiny iPad screen before being enlarged and printed. Seeing A Bigger Picture is about embracing experimentation and revisiting some of the artist’s most inspirational locations as he looks back on how far he has come since the days of being an art student in 1959. We will not only see how his painting and drawing has developed, but how his subject matter and relationship with technology has grown, too.

David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty-eleven) - 12 April, No. 1 2011

Undeniably, the main focus of this exhibition is Yorkshire, where Hockney was born and raised but no longer bases himself. He does, however, hold Yorkshire’s wide spaces and dense woodlands close to his heart in terms of inspiration. Many of the Yorkshire works have never been shown to the public, yet – judging by the dense crowds squeezing in to view each painting – they will soon find a place in popular culture. The 15 canvas painting that took centre stage in the exhibition’s publicity, Winter Timber (2009), was particularly gripping for both critics and art lovers because of its surreal colours that seem to jump out of the painting. Bark and plant formations had been carefully recorded and turned into intricate patterns of purples, pinks and browns, whilst mustard yellow piles of logs looked like giant lengths of spaghetti, such was their solid and simplified look. There is a warmth to Hockney’s paintings that makes you feel comfortable to stand in front of them, even those that depict the harshness of winter, and that’s why the crowds will keep coming.

Many of the pieces are painted or drawn from memory, as well as being stylised with fat leaves, dotted flowers or surreal colours to make them stand out from a basic landscape study. Memory is a powerful tool for Hockney, especially when combined with photographic studies or trips in the car to rediscover a certain view that he hadn’t seen since the 1950s. Rooms 1 and 3 contain the paintings most heavily based on memory rather than observation, and they are very inventive in terms of mark-making, though this can seem a little childish at times. Certain areas feel rushed and sloppy, particularly in The Road to York through Sledmere (1997), where the red brick buildings and green copper dome are bursting with life, but the phone box and road markings in the same composition look like they were finished in a hurry. Obviously this technique allows the eye to focus on the most important parts of the image, but it did feel lazy at times to have such a mixture of carefully painted and slapdash marks. A much more successful painting is Garrowby Hill (1998), which is painted using a confusing perspective that is more intelligently childlike and careful, with a purple chunky road that slices up the landscape and gridlines of blue hedges that trail into the distance. Similarly, the curved and fat trees of Woldgate Tree (2006) and A Closer Winter Tunnel (February- March 2006) feel too stripped back and stylised to be as powerful as the vast and intricate study of Woldgate Woods (21, 23 and 29 November, 2006) which uses dual perspective and heavy focus on shadows and space. The latter feels like a mature and confident approach, whereas the two former paintings wouldn’t necessarily look like the work of a professional artist. There is definitely a clash of mark-making and attempts at realism which is in flux throughout the exhibition.

David Hockney Nov. 7th, Nov. 26th 2010, Woldgate Woods, 11.30 am and 9.30 am Film still Courtesy of the artist Copyright David Hockney

When they are given the full Hockney attention then certain scenes are hard to tear yourself away from. The anthropomorphic feeling of May Blossom on the Roman Road (2009) is really enchanting, with the bushes and their shadows seeming stretching out like claws or the heads of creatures moving in the wind. The painting is alive with energy and movement. Equally the much smaller charcoal drawings of Woldgate Woods feel thick and intense, especially with the twists and curves of the hewn timber. Stripping everything back to a monochromatic palette is incredibly successful, though these studies didn’t attract the same audience as the acidic pinks and royal purples of his paintings, which made visitors stop in their tracks.

The other focus of A Bigger Picture is American landscapes, which are shown off to great effect using photographs and iPad drawings. The Grand Canyon stretches out like a natural amphitheatre in the monochromatic collage of Grand Canyon Looking North (September 1982), and it feels like we may be on the edge as we look into the chasm. Equally vivid is Grand Canyon with Hedge, Arizona (October 1982), where the camera has picked up clumps of dirt, dust and earth that Hockney’s thick paintbrushes would have edited out. Some of his initial studies led to painted pieces, and at first he was reluctant to use technology for anything other than reference, but I feel that Hockney plays down his talent as a photographer. It would have been fascinating to see more of his photos and compare them to the final pieces that were on show.

David Hockney Nichols Canyon, 1980 Acrylic on canvas 213.4 x 152.4 cm Private collection Copyright David Hockney

The iPad gave Hockney a ready-made portable canvas that was so intelligent it did not need to be converted to paint. Obviously in order to reproduce the iPad drawings then he had to consider the pixels and scale of each mark that was made, so this was not a case of producing a quick five minute doodle, but there’s definitely a sense of freedom that comes across in the images of Yosemite National Park, with its white mists and well-trodden paths. His drawings of Yorkshire using the same medium are also brilliant and they employ many of the same effects such as spray paint and thick scrawled lines of pen, which helps to give England and America a shared artistic language. It feels strangely appropriate to compare these two different settings and draw comparisons between them; Hockney may well have enjoyed Yosemite for the same reasons he loves Woldgate and Bridlington.

The corporate sponsorship and investment by the Yorkshire Tourist Board felt natural and not shoe-horned into the exhibition, although the bias against non-Yorkshire content is very clear when you reach the shop at the exit. The merchandise largely seemed to ignore the influence of America, even though it was so cleverly linked by theme and mark-making in the exhibition itself. I fully believe that Hockney’s adopted country deserved more recognition, particularly as the haunting iPad drawings of Yosemite and the photo collage of the Grand Canyon were so beautiful as well as cleverly produced. When visitors are not able to take photographs within the show then it’s incredibly important to offer them some sort of memento that reflects what they loved about the artist’s work, and this did not translate well at the Royal Academy.

Hockney’s experimental streak was laid bare in A Bigger Picture, with the iPad and the colour palette both being pushed to their limits. This felt like a show about pure creativity and clever reinterpretation of familiar places, much like Monet’s haystacks obsession, but with a modern twist. I definitely get the feeling that Monet would have enjoyed the iPad as much as Hockney does. Although there does feel like a saturation of the childlike in some areas of his work, and you might sit there thinking you could draw a gnarled tree better than he could, generally Hockney has made massive advances and this show proves it. If you want to feel like you’re stepping into the artist’s sketchbook then you’ll love A Bigger Picture and you won’t want to wait to see what he does next.

Exhibition ends: 9 April 2012

Royal Academy of Arts

Burlington House

Piccadilly

London

W1J 0BD

Tel: 020 7300 8000

Opening times:

10am-6pm Saturday-Thursday (last admission to galleries 5.30pm)

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JMW Turner: Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth, exhibited 1842 Oil on canvas © Tate, London 2011

Ninety-five works by Britain’s best-loved painter, JMW Turner, many from Tate’s collection, will go on show in the major exhibition Turner and the Elements at Turner Contemporary in Margate until 13 May 2012. The exhibition, including a number of works featuring Margate and the north Kent coast, illustrates how his painting technique and the influence of the latest scientific and technological developments of his time, revolutionised landscape painting.

JMW Turner was a frequent visitor to Margatespending time there as a child and again later in his life. He is said to have remarked to John Ruskin that “the skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe”.

Margate (?) circa 1830 © Tate, London 2011

In the 1820s and 1830s Turner lodged with Sophia Booth in a house that was located on the same site as Turner Contemporary. The windows from the house provided Turner with an ever-changing view over the beach, pier and jetty and Margate became a central subject in many of his works made at that time.

In these images of Margate and the Kentish coast, Turner’s fascination with the elements, air and water, is apparent. The exhibition focuses on the theme of the elements in the artist’s work and is divided into five sections: Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Fusion.

JMW Turner A Study of Firelight (Venice?), circa 1840 Gouache and watercolour on paper © Tate, London 2011

Sketches in the exhibition known as ‘colour beginnings’ reference Margate and the North Kent coast, Margate circa 1830, Storm on Margate Sands 1835-40 and Margate (?) from the sea circa 1835.

Turner and the Elements is organised in collaboration with Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg and The National Museum Kracow. A fully illustrated catalogue is available to accompany the exhibition.

Curated by Inés Richter-Musso and Ortrud Westheider, the exhibition is the only opportunity to see this selection of works by Turner together in the UK.

Biography: JMW Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in London on 23 April 1775. He was a keen draftsman from a young age and by the time he was 12 his drawings were on sale in the window of the family barber’s shop.

He first displayed a watercolour at the Royal Academy in 1790, aged 15. He contributed two works to the 1791 exhibition and over the next 60 years he showed at almost every exhibition. He was elected Academy Associate in 1799 and attained full membership in 1802.

The same year, the Treaty of Amiens gave the artist his first opportunity to travel to the Continent. His first destination was Switzerland. On his return journey, he also spent time in Paris where visited the Louvre. There he examined the works of Poussin, Titian, Rembrandt and Salvator Rosa. Throughout his long life, Turner made numerous journeys on the Continent as well as spending extended periods in the West Country, Yorkshire, and the Lake District.

In 1804, Turner opened his own gallery where he was able to show and sell his own work. By 1810 he had amassed a considerable fortune, which he invested in shares and property.

Turner was interested in science and technology and counted numerous scientists amongst his friends. He studied Goethe’s theory of colours and many of his late works are informed by this. He was also interested in the invention of photography, the steam engine and chemical dyes, all of which affected his practice as an artist.

Turner worked extremely hard throughout his life. He produced an enormous number of watercolours, paintings (oil on canvas) and pencil drawings in sketchbooks. A large number of these were left to the nation and are now housed at Tate Britain.

Turner first saw the sea in his early teens, when he was sent to Margate to stay with relatives of his mother. In his later years he again became a regular visitor to Margate, staying in a house overlooking the beach. His landlady, Mrs Booth, became his mistress.

Turner died in London in 1851 and is said to have remarked ‘The Sun is God’ as he took his last look into the sky. Mrs Booth, his Margate landlady, was with him as he died. Turner kept this relationship secret even though it began as early as 1834.

Today Turner’s works are enjoyed and praised, even if their true meaning remains fluid and difficult to grasp. In 1984 the Tate Gallery established the prestigious Turner Prize, in part because Turner had wished to establish an award for artists.

Exhibition dates: Ends 13 May 2012

Turner Contemporary

Rendezvous

Margate

Kent CT9 1HG

Tel: 01843 233000

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Image courtesy Paula Davy

Presented across two days (18-19 February), DEATHTRIPPING journeys into the radical manifesto of the Cinema of Transgression, an 80s underground film movement which spawned from New York’s No Wave scene and is characterised by an extreme and satirical take on themes of pleasure, horror, sex and disgust.

The Cinema of Transgression disavowed themselves from tradition – Zedd, Kern and Lunch presented their work in nightclubs enabling collaboration between filmmakers, performers and musicians including Sonic Youth, Nick Cave, Foetus/ JG Thirlwell, Henry Rollins amongst others.

PROGRAMME:
Saturday 18 February | 6.30pm-late | £10 adv
Iconic performer Lydia Lunch headlines a special evening of spoken word including excerpts from Paradoxia, an autobiographical document of her early career when she collaborated on numerous transgressive films and led influential No Wave band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Lunch’s performance kicks off a late night of one-off performances and installations against a noisy soundtrack of no-wave and punk. Artists include Joss Carter, Paula Davy, Emergent Behaviour, Evangelia Christakou, Yolanda de los Bueis, Isabelle Schiltz, Benjamin Fox, Andrew Moscardo-Parker and DJ set by Greg Bird.

Sunday 19 February | 12-5pm | admission free
Don’t miss a rare chance to watch transgressive films by Nick Zedd and Richard Kern – some of the films were deemed so shocking when they were made the state of New York banned them! There’ll also be another chance to view film, performance and installations by up and coming artists.

DEATHTRIPPING is presented as part of ‘The Garage presents…’ a strand of one off events at VIVID embracing music, live arts, installation, performance, digital and sonic media.

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