Richard Hamilton - Tate Modern and ICA

Richard Hamilton, Swingeing London, 1967

Richard Hamilton is at Tate Modern until 26 May 2014 and at the ICA until 6 April 2014.

Richard Hamilton is routinely labelled as the 'Father of British Pop Art', principally because of his wonderful, prescient 1956 collage Just what is it about today's homes that makes them so different, so appealing? (see below) and his early (1957) definition of Pop: Pop Art is: Popular (designed for a mass audience),Transient (short-term solution), Expendable (easily forgotten), Low cost, Mass produced, Young (aimed at youth), Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, Big business. However, despite this, and a handful of other seminal works classified as 'British Pop', his wide ranging interests and restless experimentation meant that his work largely escapes such a narrow classification.

The exhibition at Tate Modern presents a huge range of his work from student etchings made in 1949 through to the work he was making at the time of his death in 2011, and includes a reconstruction of his 1956 installation Fun House and his replica of Marcel Duchamp's 'Large Glass'.

Complementing the Tate’s show the ICA is also showing reconstructions of two installations, Man, Machine and Motion (1955) and An Exhibit (1957).

Read reviews by Adrian Searle, Richard Cork, Laura Cumming, Jackie Wullschlager, Brian Sewell and Mark Hudson and an article by Fiona MacCarthy.

Richard Hamilton, Man, Machine and Motion, 1955 (reconstructed for ICA 2014)

Richard Hamilton, Just what is it about today's homes that makes them so different, so appealing?, 1956

Richard Hamilton, Interior II, 1964

Richard Hamilton, Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland, 1964

Marcel Duchamp / Richard Hamilton, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-23; replica 1965-6

Richard Hamilton, The Citizen, 1981-3

Richard Hamilton, Self-Portrait 05.3.81, 1990

Stuart Hall, 1932 - 2014

Dawoud Bey, Stuart Hall, 1998

Stuart Hall died on 10 February 2014.
The passing of Stuart Hall is a big loss. While his scholarship and contributions to the fields of sociology and cultural studies were profound (his ideas have affected me deeply and have informed my own teaching) I think most of all he will be missed for his intelligent analysis of politics and culture and for simply being an extraordinarily decent and charming person.
Read an obituary in The Guardian and by Roger Bromley; read an article by Stuart Jeffries, and an interview with Zoe Williams; listen to an interview with Laurie Taylor recorded in 2011 and Laurie Taylor's 'Thinking Allowed' tribute; watch him talking about Represention and the Media.

Stuart Hall (far right) with associates of The New Left Review, 1960s

Hannah Höch - Whitechapel Gallery

Hannah Höch, Untitled (from an Ethnographic Museum), 1930

Hannah Höch is at Whitechapel Gallery until 23 March 2014.

Höch is probably best known (perhaps only known) for her complex 1919 photocollage Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic (below) - which is not included in the current exhibition (too fragile to travel, I believe) -  so it is really interesting to see the breadth of the work she made from the 1910s through to the 1970s. The standout work is, unquestionably, the series of  photocollages she made in Germany in the 1920s and 30s in the wake of the First World War and into the period of the Third Reich.

Read Hannah Höch: Art's Original Punk by Brian Dillon, and exhibition reviews by Laura Cumming, Alastair Smart, Rachel Spence and Adrian Hamilton.

Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic, 1919

Hannah Höch, Untitled (from an Ethnographic Museum), 1929

Hannah Höch, Fashion Show, 1925-35

Hannah Höch, Untitled (from an Ethnographic Museum), 1929

Hannah Höch, Flight, 1931

Hannah Höch, Made for a Party, 1936

Hannah Höch, photographed in 1926

Paul Klee - Tate Modern

Paul Klee, Greeting, 1922

Paul Klee: Making Visible is at Tate Modern until 9 March 2014.
This comprehensive exhibition of Klee's work has been at Tate Modern since last autumn and has garnered some ecstatic reviews (see below). Klee is especially celebrated for his visual inventiveness, wit and lightness of touch - his exemplary visual adventures arising from 'taking a line for a walk'. At his best he certainly is charming - I especially liked the 'fish' pictures, but I also found some of the more fully abstract works were a relief from the whimsicality and sheer sweetness that continually threaten to overwhelm in this large exhibition.
Read reviews by Laura Cumming, Adrian Searle, Richard Dorment and Adrian Hamilton.

Paul Klee, They're Biting, 1920

Paul Klee, Fish Magic, 1925

Paul Klee, Comedy, 1921

Paul Klee, A Young Lady's Adventure, 1922

Paul Klee, Steps, 1929

Paul Klee, Fire at Full Moon, 1933