Recent Entries

• Cubist Capacity

  by Art Rat March 26
        Even today, mention of the name Pablo Picasso will engender a whole variety of reactions, from ‘Ah yes, the true progenitor of the avant garde’ (delivered with pinky placed strategically at corner of mouth), to ‘What is this, wallpaper?’ (uttered after...

• In The Skies

  by Art Rat February 27
      I’d be the first to admit to a pitiful ignorance of Indian art, apart from encounters with the usual array of garishly coloured Hindu reproductions of Vishnu, Shiva, Ganesh and Brahma. These usually turn up in badly reproduced posters and pictures, together with random snippets...

• Bright Size Life

  by Art Rat January 30
        More hyped than the Lennon’s second coming, A Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy is a true David Hockney extravaganza (nearly every major exhibition room in Burlington House) and has plenty of hyperbole to live up to. Judging by the queue snaking around the Academy&rsq...

• Vorsprung durch Gesamtkunstwerk

  by Art Rat January 16
    Two weeks into the New Year, hangover lifted, bank balance empty, nothing written in the bloody blog. Right, to make up for (at least) 14 days absence, the task is 14 rooms of contemporary German art and sculpture in one bite.   Gesamtkunstwerk, a term favoured by Richard Wagner, tran...

• Turner, Thomson, Tutus

  by Art Rat December 8, 2011
      After the sheer physical, visual and emotional impact of Monday’s Turner prize award at the Baltic on the South Bank (of the Tyne), what could possibly top an experience that was at once alarming and epoch defining?   I mean, how many chances are you going to get to see...

• Straight Outta Compton

  by Art Rat November 29, 2011
  Sunny day, fed up with traffic wardens, golf sales, twittering idiots on dumb phones, the stench of Ricky Gervais, Xmas f**king decorations. Solution: Jump into Ratmobile, stick some Eek-A-Mouse on extra low, engage gear and hit the A3 south to sunny Surrey.Once past the fairly dismal environs of Gu...

• The weird and wonderful John Soane Museum

  by Art Rat November 18, 2011
  With a disappointing lack of over-hyped blockbuster shows this week, there was nothing for it but to wander hopefully around town looking for art.Although there are plenty of smaller exhibitions in Cork Street and the surrounding area, head further east, past Charing Cross and into Lincoln’s I...
  1 comment

• Justin Bieber vs Leonardo da Vinci

  by Art Rat November 10, 2011
  OK, so its time for the ‘Cultural event of a lifetime’, a ‘One time chance to see a unique spectacle with international elements in one location’. So what did your correspondent think of this artistic juggernaut, this resurrection, this new heart at the core of our being?Well...

• Meet the Art Rat

  by Art Rat November 6, 2011
  This is Art Rat, a blog about Art, not rodents. Each week, you’ll get an insight into some of the best exhibitions, launches and Art events, places and people in and near London. It’s not meant to be taken over seriously, its not written by an expert or someone who reckons that everyone ...