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

Michael Wolf: Architecture of Density - Flowers Gallery

Michael Wolf, Architecture of Density #39, 2005

Michael Wolf's amazing photographs of Hong Kong, Architecture of Density, are at Flowers, Cork Street until 22 February 2014.

Michael Wolf, Architecture of Density #119, 2009

Michael Wolf, Architecture of Density #13b, 2009

Michael Wolf, Architecture of Density #75, 2009

Michael Wolf, Architecture of Density, Scout #7

Michael Wolf, From My Favourite Thing

Michael Wolf, From My Favourite Thing

Picasso Linocuts - British Museum

Pablo Picasso, Still Life under the Lamp, 1962

Two linocuts by Picasso, along with the progressive proofs, have been acquired by the British Museum and are on display until 6 May 2014.
Both prints, the monochrome Jacqueline Reading, and the absolutely gorgeous Still Life under the Lamp, date from 1962 when Picasso was 81.  
Watch a video explaining Picasso's method devised for Still Life which was made by progressively cutting and printing from the same block rather than cutting a block for each colour. Read the Museum's press release.

Pablo Picasso, Jacqueline Reading, 1962

A New Objectivity - S | 2 Gallery

Bernd and Hilla Becher, Wassertürme (Water Towers), 1973

A New Objectivity:The Düsseldorf School of Photography is at S | 2 Gallery until 17 January 2014.
I am a bit late with this - I had meant to highlight it back in December, but somehow life got in the way. Then I stumbled across an article entitled Has the Düsseldorf School killed photography? by Grant Scott and was reminded to do so.
The Düsseldorf School refers to a group of photographers associated with, what was, the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the teaching of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Typically, they make large-scale work in a deadpan documentary style and include, amongst others, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff, Axel Hütte and  Thomas Struth. (I loved Struth's show at the Whitechapel back in 2011 - see below.)
Grant's polemic is not so much aimed at the heroes (my word, not his!) of the School itself but at what he sees as their baleful influence upon the rising generation of photographers - or, at least, the lazy ones! Grant allows that the original disciples of the Düsseldorf School [brought] new ways of seeing but he seems to have little time for the Bechers, whose teaching was so influential. He writes: 

the Bechers photographed industrial landscapes and architecture in stark, graphic black and white, documenting Germany’s industrial past of water towers, mining sites and coal bunkers. Their work was cold, clinical, emotionless and documentary, ... [p]hotography without opinion, without comment or personality.

I love their work!
I am not in a position to argue with Grant about the degree of Düsseldorfian influence on young photographers, but I suspect we see photography (and the world) with different eyes and taste. Grant wants photography with more personality, expression and emotion - I want less!
Whatever else might be said about it, the work in this show will comprise big images, by big names which will, undoubedly sell for big money. (S | 2 belongs to Sotheby's.) Gursky, after all did set an auction record back in 2011 when his fabulous Rhine II sold for a staggering $4,338,500 (see below).

Andreas Gursky, Singapore Börse, 1996

Thomas Struth, Calle Sacchere, 1990

Thomas Struth, Iglesia de San Francisco, Lima Peru, 2003

Thomas Struth, Seamless Tube Production, Tenaris Siderca, Campana, Buenos Aires, 2009

Candida Höfer, Iglesia de Saõ Francisco de Assis Salvador de Bahia I, 2005

Candida Höfer, Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Amsterdam II, 2003

Thomas Ruff, Nudes OBE 08, 2001

Axel Hütte, Bussaco, 1999