Damien Hirst - Tate Modern - I was surprised how much I enjoyed this - even though many of the pieces felt very familiar - would be a brilliant exhibition for someone who knew nothing of his work.
Edvard Munch - The Modern Eye - Tate Modern
No scream ! but a fascinating record of his troubled and exciting life - really interested in his continued self portraiture through painting and photography.
Summer Exhibition - The Royal Academy
Not very inspiring for me this year but did enjoy seeing a real Frank Bowling poured painting for sale at £96,000 - titled Ashton's Plunge - it looked something like this but as they won't let you take photos ...
Doris Salcedo at the White Cube - Masons Yard
Two very moving works about the missing and murdered in her native Columbia. The first is a massive shroud of sutured rose petals which are in a suspended state.
The second is 45 units out of the total of 162 that make up the full installation - each sculpture is the length and breadth of a coffin, made of two tables placed on top of each other with a thick layer of soil sandwiched between the table tops.
Howard Hodgkin - Aquainted with the Night - at the Alan Cristea Gallery
Hand painted carborundum and aquatint etchings on paper.
They were created using carborundum, a substance originally used in its solid form to grind down lithographic stones, but in this case itself powdered and mixed with PVA glue to form a paste, which the painter applies directly to an aluminium printing-plate.
The marks dry to form a granular surface, which can be inked and printed in different colours. Hodgkin describes the results as “surrogate paintings ... on the edge of not being prints at all”.
Glen Baxter at Flowers - A Soul in Torment parts 1 and 2
Always been my favourite surrealist.
