Ai Weiwei, Free Speech Puzzle (2014), via Art Observed

It’s been a whirlwind year for Ai Weiwei, as the artist’s staunch opposition and fierce criticism to government censorship of his work and life brought both new challenges (the alleged bugging of his studio and the arrest of his lawyer and friend Pu Zhiqiang) and new victories, including relaxed limits on his ability to show in China, and ultimately, the return of his passport, allowing the artist to leave the country for the first time since his arrest in 2011.  This last event underscores the artist’s triumphant exhibition at the Royal Academy in London, where he has mounted an expanded version of his traveling solo exhibition, including a series of new works for the show. (more…)

London’s Royal Academy has launched a Kickstarter page to fund the £100,000 installation of Ai Weiwei’s Trees at the museum’s London courtyard.  “It is an experiment and a gamble, but a sensible one,” says Tim Marlow, the RA’s artistic director. “If it comes off, brilliant; if not then it was worth trying.” (more…)

A series of six new public commissions spearheaded by Norman Rosenthal, former head of exhibitions at the Royal Academy, have been announced for Embassy Gardens, the site of the new U.S. Embassy in London.  “Each show is a germ of an idea that could become a museum exhibition,” Rosenthal says. “They are all shows I have dreamt of doing.” (more…)

Honoré Daumier, The Sideshow (Parade de Saltimbanques) (1865-66) Courtesy Royal Academy of Arts

On view at the Royal Academy of Arts is an exhibition of 130 works by 19th century artist Honoré Daumier, composed primarily of paintings, drawings, watercolors, and sculptures, that strengthen the artist’s history as both a perceptive and nuanced painter, as well as a truly comic satirist.

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Financial Times editor Simon Schama recently sat down with artist Grayson Perry for an interview covering the artist’s new exhibition at the Royal Academy in London.  Discussing his influences and practice, the artist goes on to discuss the broader context of British art in the global community. “We are all so desperate to hunt for Englishness, to try and connect to the European renaissance, that we are missing our own brilliant contribution to world culture, which is to say, “Oh come off it!” That’s what we do, hold complex ideas and manage to be ambiguous in a humane way, to celebrate humanity while at the same time satirising it, that’s what makes us English.” (more…)

The Royal Academy of the Arts is preparing for a major exhibition of works from the Australian continent, opening in September.  Featuring some of the country’s most iconic works, the show is already generating a great deal of interest in both the UK and Australia.  “I think it’s true to say that there has never been an exhibition like this before,” said Kathleen Soriano, the show’s curator. “This survey is long, long overdue. We should know more of these important figures as part of our broader art historical canon, not least because so much of it relates directly back to this country but even more so because there are some tremendous artists we really should be aware of and should be able to enjoy.” (more…)

David Hockney – A Closer Winter Tunnel, February–March (2006), Guggenheim Bilbao

British painter David Hockney has, over the course of his 50 year career, continually pushed the conceptions of landscape painting, exploring various approaches to form, color and composition that mirror his ongoing fascination with shifting technologies and cultural perception. Now, his work is being shown at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao as the second venue of a major exhibition of the Yorkshire native’s work, including a large collection of works done in his home town.

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David Hockney, The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire (2011), one of a 52-part work. All images via The Guardian 

Britain’s Royal Academy of Art is currently showing some two hundred works by ‘Royal Academician’ David Hockney. The exhibition, A Bigger Picture, is centered on fifty-two new works inspired by the Yorkshire landscape of Northern England, where Hockney has been residing on and off for the past few years. Much of the work is new, including fifty-one new works ‘painted’ with an iPad application and enlarged.

David Hockney, Winter Timber (2009)

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