BOOKS
BOOKS
Art and the Historical Film provides an important examination of fine art's impact on filmmaking, grappling with the question of authenticity.From Eugene Delacr...
Since cinema's earliest days, literary adaptation has provided the movies with stories; and so we use literary terms like metaphor, metonymy and synedoche to describe visual things.
RECENT
why I love museums and why you should too The Sainsbury Centre, Norwich I admit I've never been employed as a full time museum official, but I've volunteered, given plenty of talks at museums and above all I use museums as resource for research. I have travelled all over the world for that purpose and...
Carl Dreyer's film Vampyr and the World of Dreams. Dreyer cinematography surrealism vampire seduction dream lighting realism. Vampyr, vampire.
Art Travelling London - 'Matter' Curated by Jo Dennis MATTER: Anna Blom, William Cobbing, Jo Dennis, Sophie Goodchild, David Hepher, Nicola Hicks, Henry Hussey, Pia Ortuño, Maria Positano, Catriona Robertson, Richard Smith, Melania Toma, Lorenzo Vitturi This exhibition at Flowers Gallery Kingsland Road features various works united not by theme or artist identity, but by...
Travel
Horus It's an exciting day today because this is the day that the mummies are to be moved to the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation in Fustat, near old Cairo. The new building will have a special research centre and showcase for the Pharaonic mummies, including Hatshepsut and Ramses II.
Lisbon is an outstanding destination for seeing both traditional and contemporary art and architecture in a chilled out, comfortable and very friendly environment Art Travelling: Five Of The Best Art Destinations In Lisbon When it comes to art travelling, people usually think of the great capital cities of Europe: Paris and the Louvre, Madrid's Prado,...
Lisbon is one of those places I can never get enough of. Its natural beauty, climate, people, wonderful art, chill and friendly atmosphere, and delicious pastries always make my trips unforgettable. I'll start by telling you about natas. You know those tiny egg custard tarts that have been appearing in your favourite cafes for...
Torun: from Astronomy to Gastronomy Why is Poland off the tourism radar? I have been visiting Poland regularly for decades now, and while I do enjoy the relative lack of tourist crush, I do sometimes wonder why it is that the country is a little bit off the tourism radar.
I spent a week in Manhattan (mostly) for the express purpose of looking at art. That meant spending a lot of time in the Met and MOMA, not to mention as many of the other museums and galleries I co...
ART
I was lucky enough to make a short trip to British Columbia in March, where I caught a fantastic exhibition at my favourite Canadian gallery, the New Media Gallery, situated just outside Vancouver in...
Art Travelling in London means the world comes to you much of the time! March 2024 sees the AWAN - Arab Women Artists Now! - festival in London. A wide range of activities and approaches abound in...
The Cairo artist's exhibition of painitng at Gallery Misr, Zamalek
I've always had an interest in these things; however, chances to see exhibitions of artworks of this type were, up until quite recently, very few and far between. So while I have always known about...
On 8 August 1588 the English navy defeated the invading Spanish Armada. Over two centuries later, in the middle of another war, émigré Frenchman Philip James de Loutherbourg painted his interpretation of the great sea battle. As a theatre designer and special-effects expert, de Loutherbourg had created spectacular naval battles onstage; this painting gives a...
"Frightening isn't it?" remarks the stranger standing next to me. I follow her gaze. Oh yes, she's right, it's terrifying. But it's undeniably beautiful. Two slender, velvet lined metal wings rise up from a filigreed base, graceful and almost insubstantial. It casts a delicate shadow on the red fabric of the display case.
A very good friend of mine applied to the newly created East London Painting Prize, which announced its inaugural winner last week. He didn't get shortlisted and he was fine about this. I, however, got pretty upset - not because they should have taken his painting; that's not important.
Artist Islam Zaher's exhibiton at Gallery misr Zamalek, catalogue essay.
Since March most of us have been largely confined to our houses except for 'exercise,' which in my case means a substantial dog walk every day. I went out to see if the coronavirus experience had motivated any of east London's street artists to respond to our current situation.
Where did the site-specific idea come from? And can an artist ever really know how it will turn out? Gillian McIver traces its emergence and looks forward to future developments.
The black subject: ancient to modern Tate Britain Saturday 21st of February This symposium, which in only one day tried to cover the appearance of the black subject in art from ancient times up to modernism, was a gathering together of interesting recent research, given by compelling speakers.
Palestinian video art: constellation of the moving image ed. Bashir Makhoul, (2013) Jerusalem1 January 2013 - 27 January 2014 Reviewed by: Gillian Mciver " Palestinian video art: constellation of the moving image Ed.
Is Frieze Art Fair useful in any way to artists and is it good for artists and art? Filmmaker, artist and Frieze first-timer Gillian McIver roams the gallery booths and curated projects at the fair's vast Regent's Park marquee and finds the experience useful, enlightening and at times troubling.
Castiglione, Lost Genius The Queen's Gallery, London1 November 2013 - 15 March 2014 Reviewed by: Gillian Mciver " Castiglione, Lost Genius There was initial confusion about this exhibition, because I had confused Giovanni Castiglione the Baroque painter, with Baldassare Castiglione the Renaissance writer.
FILM
How do artists and filmmakers depict pre-history? In this article I look at 1830s American painter Thomas Cole and the 1980s films Clan of the Cave Bear & Quest for Fire.
adapting the baader meinhof complex book inot the film of the same name involved using paintings as motifs to create an emotive mise ne scene
Sunset Directed by László Nemes Cinematography Mátyás Erdély 2018 Set in fin de siècle Budapest, Sunset is a Dostoyevskian portrait of the final embers of the Austro-Hungarian empire guttering out in a maelstrom of anarchism, nihilism crime and unexpressed and inexpressible secrets. The film follows a young woman, Irisz , as she returns to her...
The Valley of the Gods is a sandstone valley in the American desert. It is an iconic landscape, best known to most people from Western films, many filmed in the nearby and similar Monument Vallery. The fascinaton goes back even to the 19th-century when Europeans first encountered the mysterious canyons and buttes (rock formations) in...
Watching History Films Critically: Watching Tudors on screen One of the things that I have been doing recently in my writing about film and art, is thinking a lot about how we watch historical movies.
Hagen is a handsome youth who, through no fault of his own, is violently cast out from his family. Learning to survive on the streets with the help of other homeless, he finds there love and companionship. But mainstream society permits no place for Hagen or his friends; only exploitation or incarceration.
In a picturesque village on the outskirts of Paris, time seems to stand still. Young bride Lucille Angellier (Michelle Williams) goes through the routines of daily life, under the brusque supervision of her domineering mother-in-law (Kristin Scott Thomas), as both quietly wait for news of her husband at the front.
One genre that Britain has really made its mark on is the gangster film, with classics like Brighton Rock (2010) and Sexy Beast (2000), and edgy indies like Dead Men's Shoes (2004). Our cinema has never shied away from the kind of social realism that shows the grime and bleakness of hard drugs and gang violence.
A slip of the tongue would allow you to confuse Canadian police procedural The Calling with Scandinavian police procedural The Killing. What they share is the sense of profoundly disturbing and unpleasant things happening in a proverbial quiet, peaceful, even complacent Nordic country, expressed in cool, desaturated tones and myriad shades of white.
PREVIOUS
'Making Time in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon' is not only a welcome addition to the already bountiful field of Kubrick studies; it is also the sole monograph specifically addressing Barry Lyndon.
OUT OF BALANCE GALERIE GERKEN, BERLIN8 September - 11 October 2012 Reviewed by: Gillian Mciver " There are two principal cities for artists in the European part of the world now: London and Berlin. No others come close to matching these cities for their vigour: their astounding historic collections counterpointed by contemporary verve.
The state of the surreal in contemporary cinema
SUNDAY ART FAIR AMBIKA P3, LONDON12 - 14 October 2012 Reviewed by: Gillian Mciver " Art fairs are a pretty good way of getting a quick overview of what is happening in the art world in terms of what galleries and curators are setting out to present how they want to be perceived.
Wolf is excited by massive spatials, urban landscapes photographed in such a way as to compress and extend the built environment.
If anyone deserved a big, expansive show, serving up a comprehensive range of mixed media works, it's Deller.
earth:NOW:being Hackney City Farm, London8 - 9 October 2011 Reviewed by: Gillian Mciver " Earth now being Valentin Manz and Christine Cynn earth:NOW:being is a project by artist Valentin Manz & film-maker Christine Cynn, made at Church Farm Ardeley (a high-welfare, ecological farm in Hertfordshire).
Each month a guest selector chooses an artist from the Axis directory to be featured as our artist of the month. This month curator and writer Gillian McIver discusses her selection.
The juncture of a screening of Sarah Turner's new feature film Perestroika, and the tail end of Rosalind Nashashibi's exhibition of film based art, came together briefly at the ICA.
An unexpected and welcome opportunity to reintroduce the issue of “Expanded Cinema” into current debate around art, cinema and culture.
Book Review, MIT Press, 2009
ART/SITE: AN INTRODUCTION TO ART AS SITE RESPONSE Ed.Gillian McIver A selection of essays commissioned and introduced by Gillian McIver. APOCALYPTIC POLLINATIONS: GOING BEYOND "THE SITE" Kelty Miyoshi McKinnon ART/SITE/CONTEXT Gillian McIver IN CONCLUSION Gillian McIver A RECENT HISTORY OF SITE-SPECIFICITY IN ART Gillian McIver ART AND HISTORY: CHRISTO WRAPS THE REICHSTAG Niko Rollmann JUNK SPACE: TOWARD A THEORY AND PRACTICE OF RECYCLING THROUGH ART Hilary Powell ON...
Ima Picó uses the media-tools of camera and computer, photography and computer-generated images, to make artwork that explores media saturation in contemporary culture. Her compositions are based on original photographs that have been further developed using digital tools.
Gillian mcIver looks at artist run intiative in Moscow 2000-1
Since cinema's earliest days, literary adaptation has provided the movies with stories; and so we use literary terms like metaphor, metonymy and synedoche to describe visual things.
Art and the Historical Film provides an important examination of fine art's impact on filmmaking, grappling with the question of authenticity.From Eugene Delacroix's interpretation of the 1830 French revolution to Uli Edel's version of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, artistic representations of historical subjects are appealing and pervasive.