Caleb White

  ★   ★   ☆ ☆ ☆             Remaining in Mayfair for the moment, I chance upon the Gazelli Art House. I’ve brought gifts for some London-based friends and – wearing my hiking backpack and wading through the warm weather – I feel like an out of season Father Christmas. The Gallery is empty, save for a gallerist who is on the phone, mid-conversation with – from what I can gather - some sort of historian. He ignores me. His pocket square is vibrant, stark against his navy suit. It is only upon leaving that he offers a wave in my direction, revealing that he had, all along, been aware of my backpacked presence. This space is demonstrably not for me, not in my current get up at least. ‘The Way Forward: Derek Boshier and the Sixties’ spans both floors of the Gazelli Art House, and runs from April 25   - June 28. It is a posthumous exhibition, Boshier – a key figure in British Pop Art – passed in 2024. For someone unschooled in Art Histor...

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ I’ve recently started yet another in a long string of barista jobs. This one, located in central Manchester, makes it easy for me to pop in and visit an exhibition after a shift. So, taking the opportunity to escape out of the cold, I thought I’d give the Central Library a bit of an explore. Now, I’ve been here before, mostly as a warm space to get some work done but hadn’t yet ventured much further than the café. So, noticing a sign for an exhibition hall upstairs, I ascended the steps and to find ‘Portraits of a Workforce’. The exhibition space takes up around an eighth of the circumference of the Central Library. A grand, sweeping corridor which takes you from the central staircase through the Henry Watson Music Library, circling the Wolfson reading room. From the stairs in the Shakespeare Hall, take a left, and it the exhibition is right in front of you. Grand names for grand architecture. Composed of several spoke-like walls, the exhibition space is split ...

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ The train down to Oxford was atypically pleasant. I'd set off early, leaving Manchester at 07:25, and watched the muted sunrise usher in the day as we trundled down south. Arriving in Oxford, the weather still bitingly cold, I walked east - stopping by Gloucester Green to pick up a few pairs of earrings from the market - towards the Ashmolean.    I'd come south this particular day for my dad's birthday and thought to double up the visit with, yet another, explore of Oxford's museums and galleries. Today, The Ashmolean were opening their new exhibition on Anselm Kiefer, but - in a typically frugal fashion - I chose to go instead to their free temporary exhibition.   After making my way to the basement floor - not the most auspicious location for a temporary exhibition - I became once again distracted by the spectacle of the museum. You see, this floor contains the bulk of the performative introspection for the Ashmolean. An exhibition on the history ...

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ The walk between the People's History Museum and Salford Museum & Art Gallery - my second intended stop of the day - is freezing. Sub-zero temperatures with intermittent hail storms. On my approach, skirting the University of Salford's campus, my foot goes clean into a genuinely deep puddle of icy water. Unpleasant. But I make it.  Image via Salford Museum and Art Gallery Unpeeling from myself my hat and gloves, I head straight on up the stairs, bypassing the cafe, finding myself within their print store on the upper floor. The collection of prints for sale are pretty impressive. I found myself drawn to the work of local artist Nigel Kimber, and their monochromatic abstractions. The kind of art I would love to actually buy one day. I spent some time here, looking at the local artists works, and retrieving pencil and paper from my sodden backpack. On retrospect, this was quite the apt entrance room to the galleries, as they hold a dual purpose as exhibition space ...

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ En route to visit relatives for Christmas, I found myself back in Oxford with a decent slice of time to kill. What better use of it than visit some temporary exhibitions. The next three reviews were visited in relatively quick succession on the 19th of December 2024.  Image via The Bodleian Write Cut Rewrite could be found in Weston Library's treasury room, across the street from the Radcliffe Camera, all the way towards the back right of the spacious entrance hall. It was on display between February 2024 and January 2025 - having been curated by D. van Hulle and M. Nixon. Their accompanying book sits conspicuously above a bookshelf, visible as you enter.  The treasury is a rather small, single room exhibition space, and - this time - it is home to four central square cabinets. The walls are separated into thematic displays. The final element is the aforementioned bookshelf, containing published copies of the works under consideration in the exhibition. I wo...