"I like the idea of thinking of femininity as something solid and enduring rather than always something fragile and weak." - Simone Leigh As the 59th of the Venice Biennale draws to a close, I'm looking at the photos I took (they are decent, for once) of Simone Leigh's large-scale sculptural work and I'm having some belated thoughts. Leigh's figurative sculptures in bronze and ceramic (the latter is her medium of choice) illustrate her relentless focus on the exploration and

If there is an equivalent of Zoom fatigue for art shows, I 100% suffer from it. The ridiculous speed at which I move from one room to the other is incompatible with any coherent understanding of what's before my eyes. The best I can hope for is that adequate appreciation is happening on an unconscious level, but as far as retention and analysis go, they are sketchy at best. The one marvellous thing I did take away from the Donatello exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi , is a renewe

“That is the archaeology I am unearthing: The spectre of police violence and state control over the bodies of young Black and Brown people all over the world.” - Kehinde Wiley As I was walking through the dimly lit halls of this show this morning, all I could think about was the news of the umpteenth shooting in the US, the one in Buffalo where a 19 year old killed 10 people. In a way, I felt like I was at the crime scene. And that was it. I realised I had no desire to rea

"This Christ will never be forgotten. Was it made from earth? Was it rotting flesh? I didn’t know what the medium was […] The three Marys enraged by suffering, demented by the suffering […]. Can you imagine the petrified scream?’ - Gabriele d’Annunzio (1924) Remember the last time you saw an enraged, demented Mary? No, me neither. And that's because, with the Compianto sul Cristo Morto, Nicolò dell'Arca did the unthinkable. He took a sacred subject and then proceeded to treat

Even on a very dark day, there was something strangely uplifting in the light that pervaded these rooms of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 35 km north of Copenhagen. It may have been bucketing down like it only does in the summer, but Giacometti's magic was untarnished and, once again, the silent dialogue with his iconic statues could begin. His hieratic figures were patiently waiting, standing there like sentinels frozen in time and space. I have always been struck by th