Subterms
A century ago, in the summer of 1915, the Victoria & Albert Museum mounted an exhibition of the work of a living artist for the first time. This was the sculptor Ivan Mestrovic (1883–1962), to whom two whole galleries were devoted in a display designed by the English architect Charles Holden (who had already collaborated […] More
‘We speak of the sky as a vault, a dome,’ wrote W.R. Lethaby in his recondite but influential book of 1891, Architecture, Mysticism and Myth; ‘It may be said that at great periods of architecture ceilings were always skies.’ He was thinking of, among other things, the mosaic-covered vaults and domes of Byzantine churches on […] More
In 1853, the archaeologist and photographer Auguste Salzmann travelled to Jerusalem to photograph the city’s religious monuments. The resulting photographs were published in 1856 as the album Jerusalem: A study and photographic Reproduction of the Monuments of the Holy City. Forty-two of them are currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum as part of the […] More
For most of her career, Dayanita Singh has placed programmatic disobedience at the core of her approach to photography, challenging the formal qualities of images as well as the way they are exhibited. Amandas Ong speaks to her ahead of her show opening at Frith Street Gallery, London. Installation view, ‘Dayanita Singh: Museum of Shedding’, […] More
Cities are fragile things. They can burn: Rome in 64 AD (possibly thanks to the Emperor Nero); Constantinople in 1203 (courtesy of the Fourth Crusade); Lisbon in 1755 (because of the earthquake); Moscow in 1812 (thanks to Napoleon); Hamburg in 1842; Chicago in 1871; San Francisco in 1906… But in terms of devastation, few urban […] More
The closure of the Bourne & Shepherd studio in Kolkata brings to an end the history of the oldest photographic business in India and perhaps in the world. The firm of Shepherd and Robertson was established in Agra in 1862 and the following year, in Simla, the hill-station which would soon become the British summer […] More
‘In his bold flights of irregular fancy, his powerful mind rises superior to common conceptions, and entitles him to the high distinctive appellation of the Shakespeare of Architects.’ Such was the opinion of John Soane of the works of Sir John Vanbrugh. This was praise indeed, for – as the current exhibition at Sir John Soane’s […] More
‘I believe in the future resolution’, Andre Breton wrote in 1924, of ‘dream and reality…into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality.’ His declaration helped to inspire a century’s worth of artistic expeditions into the subconscious, though we are no closer today to achieving the ‘resolution’ he so confidently foresaw. Photography, which is often regarded […] More
