Visual Arts Reviews By The Critics At The Arts Desk

In visual arts this week, The Arts Desk looks at the paintings of Lowry

, the photographs of late great film director Ken Russell, and the street art that lies hidden beneath New York.

In keeping with the many other forthcoming celebrations for Charles Dickenss 200th birthday next year, the British Library has compiled a small exhibition in its foyer dedicated to one small area of his work his use of the supernatural, most memorably in A Christmas Carol. Though demonstrably not a believer in ghosts himself, Dickens was fascinated by the subject. Judith Flanders only real complaint about A Hankering After Ghosts: Dickens and the Supernatural, was that it didnt acknowledge Dickenss insight in recognising that the real ghosts are within ourselves.

Mark Hudson acknowledged that Salford painter LS Lowry has something of an image problem. Hugely well known for his urban and industrial scenes of stylised pipe-cleaner people, hes seen as very English, rather predictable and not at all edgy. Opinions on his work have already been formed and he has not as yet been reclaimed by contemporary art. This sizeable exhibition of 38 works from the Fifties and Sixties at one of the smaller London galleries, Richard Green, shows that Lowry has more complexity than he is credited with. Hudson identified the crucial question: whether Lowry was an obsessive eccentric, a playful illustrator or a covert formalist. He suggests Lowry was all three, which certainly makes him worth looking at afresh.

Meanwhile, in a top-secret location in the bowels of New Yorks disused subway, Jasper Rees was given privileged access to The Underbelly Project, a clandestine street art installation that the public cannot access. Risking arrest just by visiting, Rees was given a guided tour of the artworks, many by big-name artists including Ron English, Faile and The London Police, before the entrance to the site was blocked and the project shut away from human eyes for good - or at least until the day when it was either discovered or just naturally decomposed. An extraordinary protest against the commercialisation of the visual arts, this was a project too risky even for Banksy.

In the light of film director Ken Russells death this week, Jasper Rees from The Arts Desk revisited a recent interview with the man himself and presented an image gallery of photographs taken by Russell in the 1950s for magazines such as Picture Post and Illustrated Magazine. Taken around war-torn London, the images show Russells eye for the singular and penchant for the absurd, making use of comic staged scenes and props and showing a warmer, wittier side to this seemingly austere era. Even Russell himself, having more or less forgotten about the images for decades while he struggled to break into film, had to admit that the images are indeed special.

Though its called Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Sarah Kent found that the majority of graduate artists in this ICA exhibition were not attempting anything particularly new or radical. But as a result their work is also refreshingly free of self-regard and attention-seeking qualities. Artists such as Selma Parlour, Marco Palmieri and David Buckley stood out for their quiet, contemplative and rewarding work, while Ian Marshall produced the most overtly political piece, with a thought-provoking film of beautifully, disturbingly choreographed explosions.

To mark the opening of the newly refurbished Egyptian and Nubian galleries at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Fisun Gner presented an image gallery of just some of the artefacts now on show, collected from over 5000 years and over 100 sites. From the Shrine of Tahaqa (c 680 BC) to Angela Palmers contemporary take on a child mummy, its essential viewing.

by: Steve Alexander

POST COMMENT

Volver A Correr Ha Llegado El Fro Useful Advice For Enjoying A Trouble Free Trip To Madeira A Big Form For Keeping Clients Satisfy What Are The Recent End Of The World Theories? Get Ready To Rock Around The Christmas Tree With Vintage Bracelets Choosing The Best Way To Buy Laptops Cheaply How To Add Value To Your Property 2012 Preview: Realities, Opportunities & Threats The Wonders Of Lighted Signages Medicare Supplement Part D - Benefits Of Open Enrollment How Important Is Your Alexa Rank? Packing Dishes