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Friday, 18th June 2010

Queen And Country

11:46am

Steve McQueen has led a seven-year campaign commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to commemorate the British servicemen and women killed during the war in Iraq with official postage stamps bearing their portraits. Having been on tour at Manchester International Festival, the Imperial War Museum and the Barbican, Queen And Country is currently on view in room 37 of the National Portrait Gallery, where it remains until 18 July. The UK Royal Mail has yet to give the go-ahead to the project.   McQueen’s frustration with his inability to gain proper film footage during his 6 days spent with British...

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Friday, 21st May 2010

DAVID LACHAPELLE: The Rape of Africa

2:16pm

The Rape of Africa, an exhibition of works by David LaChapelle (at Robilant+Voena, 27 April–23 June) has divided critics over how successfully the photographer has made the transition from fashion and celebrity pictures to fine art.

His new show is the London debut of LaChapelle as the ‘artist’, but his pictures still maintain the kitsch and gaudy, yet delectably captivating, visual style. Scenes of exploitation are meant to satirise the powerful – from the Pope sitting atop a mound of jewels and naked men (Thy Kingdom Come), to the titular The Rape of Africa featuring Naomi Campbell dressed as...

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Friday, 7th May 2010

Nairy Baghramian and Phyllida Barlow

1:22pm

On entering the exhibition dedicated (a little too late) to these two prominent female sculptors, almost tripping over Baghramian’s Türstopper (Door Stopper) is a good introduction. Though both artists work with seemingly contradictory materials and colour and have evidently opposing creative processes – one throws paint on crates and polystyrene whilst the other uses moulds and meticulously polished aluminium – their concern for carving up space and creating challenging new dialogues with rearrangements of art works seems something at the heart of both their practice.

Nairy Baghramian is an Iranian, Berlin based artist whose work sits on the...

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Friday, 19th March 2010

The European Fine Art Fair 2010

4:58pm

The 2010 edition of The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) got off to a flying and elegant start on preview day, 11 March, with an impressive concentration of Hermès handbags and Chanel suits per square mile.

The private view was attended by a record 10,500 people, and saw some key sales being made. Sculpture specialists Robert Bowman Gallery sold a white marble and bronze bust of Othello by Pietro Calvi to a private collector  – who intends it for display at the National Gallery of Art, Washington – for a six-figure sum, while Ben Janssens Oriental Art sold more than...

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Tuesday, 2nd February 2010

Botticelli to Titian

7:02pm

If you can find the time for a day or so in Budapest before February 14, make the reservation now. For the city’s Fine Arts Museum - the Szepmuveszeti Muzeum - has organised and staged a huge and unmissable international loan show of Italian Renaissance art, 'Botticelli to Titian: Two Centuries of Italian Masterpieces'. Loans have come from the great museums of the world to supplement the by no means unimpressive home team, but it is those that have been drawn from little-known or little-visited institutions in eastern Europe that prove the irresistible lure to foreign visitors.

In pride of...

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Spaced out

A recent exhibition in Nottingham showcases contemporary artists' exploration of the Communist-era space race.

Architecture - Bring Back the Railings

As part of a metal salvage drive for munitions in World War II, many of the UK’s parks and squares lost their iron railings. With the National Gallery now victim to a constant stream of commercial events in its environs, isn’t it time we got them back?