REVIEWS

Art Focus Now

6. 01.25

Fifty Writers Join Forces on Handbook of Soviet Underground

This is a monster of a book for a monster of a subject. Some fifty authors have been selected as guides to try and show us paths into this deep and often a forest which seemed impenetrable. For the artists of the Underground hiding one’s tracks was at times a matter of life or death: it was second nature to most living through this period…

Art Focus Now

10.6.2020

Yuri darling: all you need is to live a bit

Yuri Albert (b. 1959) is a monster of our making, and, like Viktor Frankenstein’s creation, he feels unloved by us. Or at least, he does, if you believe his series, ‘Why they don’t love me’, 2007, or the words in his painting, ‘I am not Lichtenstein’, 2000. A blonde girl with the reddest of lips purrs: “WHY YURI DARLING THIS PAINTING IS A MASTERPIECE.” The superhero painter, replies, looking straight ahead with his jaw sticking out: “THANKS, DEAR – BUT IT’S A SHAME I’M NOT LICHTENSTEIN.”

He may be unloved, but as Yuri Albert was created by us and he puts up the mirror to our times as brilliantly as anyone….

Painting through the Night with Tom Hammick, Apollo

Turkish contemporary art at the Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg, Financial Times