Noland left the art world in 2000. In the absence of new works or interviews, she exists “mainly as a legend”. Now, suddenly, a survey show. Is it comeback or just contrariness? Whichever, it is a reminder of the potency of her bleak work. Her sculptures portray an America where “violence is synonymous with amusement … an openly exploitative society”.
An excoriating review. Moore’s fascination with armour led to a decades-long series of modernist heads. “The Helmet Heads are Moore’s answer to Bacon’s screaming popes. The trouble is, they have none of Bacon’s cruel genius. [They have] neither the immediacy of a photograph nor the imaginative impact of truly original art. Moore is always a few miles from life.”
Matthew Barney gets high praise – among “the greatest [artists] of the last 50 years”. His work – video, “wonderous” sculpture, drawings – is undoubtedly influential. Skeptics persist, though, seeing his work as less than the sum of its parts. One reviewer thinks his current show a “visual dreamscape, both on the movie screen and in the gallery space [but] without legible intent.”