Beyond the Canvas
My top 12 exhibitions of 2023
This year I saw a lot of beautiful, inspiring, thought-provoking, memorable, urgent and necessary art. This list is in chronological...
top of page
Beyond the Canvas
Oct 31, 20221 min read
Overlooked and underrated: Bologna's Renaissance.
Eclipsed by Ferrara's and crushed between Venice's and Florence's, Bologna's Renaissance art fails to garner the attention and...
13 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Feb 26, 20222 min read
Ukrainian artists: Oleg Tistol
My dear Ukrainian friend Halyna makes veggie borsch for me. She also makes kapusta (red cabbage), Olivier (Russian) salad and blinis,...
13 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Feb 14, 20222 min read
Cops and lovers
Today Instagram is aflood with red hearts, declarations of eternal love, schmaltzy quotes and unmissable promotions. And while swathes of...
5 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Feb 2, 20222 min read
Appropriating Jacopo Pontormo is a really bad idea
"Good artists copy; great artists steal." - Apocryphal quote The history of modern and contemporary art is littered with instances of...
15 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Dec 22, 20212 min read
Drunk on art.
Whether it’s the first one or the latest of many, a visit to Florence’s Uffizi is bound to leave you breathless. Such are the quality and...
13 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Dec 1, 20211 min read
On World AIDS Day
"If I have to change my lifestyle, I don't want to live." - Robert Mapplethorpe In this powerful self-portrait Robert Mapplethorpe looks...
5 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Nov 13, 20211 min read
Domenico Gnoli at Fondazione Prada, Milan
“I always use simple elements, I don’t want to add or subtract anything. I never even wanted to deform either: I isolate and I represent....
58 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Sep 4, 20212 min read
Women who defend themselves
At long last, my reading drought has come to an end. I am currently re-reading the original version of The Life Before Us written in 1975...
22 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Mar 23, 20212 min read
Laura Aguilar's courageous rebellion
“My photography has always provided me with an opportunity to open myself up and see the world around me. And most of all, photography...
13 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Oct 20, 20202 min read
Fourteen days to the US Presidential election.
“We are at a precipice in this country, and we are either going to move forward or we are not.” - Carrie Mae Weems In 2016, nearly half...
19 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Sep 20, 20201 min read
Americans in Venice
Venice is, among many other wonderful things, synonymous with glass. The work of the Murano glassblowers has inspired countless artists...
19 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Sep 3, 20201 min read
Héctor Zamora's Lattice Detour, The Met rooftop
"The wall is a monument to openness over enclosure, lightness over heaviness, transience over permanence — it’s also fraught with...
27 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Jul 27, 20202 min read
Dwelling: In This Space We Breathe, Khadija Saye (1992-2017)
‘The series was created from a personal need for spiritual grounding after experiencing trauma. The search for what gives meaning to our...
49 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Apr 16, 20202 min read
Flashback no. 4: Egon Schiele's flowers at Leopold Museum, Vienna (27 January 2017)
The Leopold Museum in Vienna's MuseumsQuartier is one the many gems of the city's outstanding cultural offering, arguably among the...
161 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Apr 13, 20202 min read
Flashback no. 3: Robert Longo at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (19 October 2016)
Discovery no. 1: Gorky Park is a name I used to associate with a spy movie from the 80s. Now I know where it is, it took me well over an...
20 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Apr 11, 20201 min read
Flashback no. 2: Jaume Plensa, 56th Venice Biennale (11 October 2015)
With permanent installations across the globe, Barcelona-born Jaume Plensa is the one of the doyens of large scale artistic projects in...
22 views2 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Apr 8, 20201 min read
Flashback no. 1: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (5 March 2017)
There are many reasons to visit the Getty Centre, which is nestled in the hills overlooking West Los Angeles. The first is probably its...
16 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Apr 5, 20201 min read
Spring in art part 8: the day van Gogh comes to Fulham
Today is the most awaited day of my year. The hopeful and feverish monitoring of the evolution of the buds on my beloved pear tree...
19 views0 comments
Beyond the Canvas
Apr 2, 20201 min read
Spring in art part 7: Steichen does a van Gogh
Luxembourg-born Edward Steichen is one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. He was one of the founders of the...
19 views0 comments
bottom of page