Louisa Buck
Encyclopedia
Louisa Buck is a British
art critic and contemporary art correspondent for The Art Newspaper
. She was a jurist for the 2005 Turner Prize
.
QC
(1926–2003) by his first wife, Judy Grant, from whom he was divorced after 34 years. His marriage to his second wife, Spanish fashion designer, Bienvenida Pérez Blanco, who was 30 years younger than him, ended in scandal, when she admitted adultery with Sir Peter Harding
, the British Chief of the Defence Staff
, and sold her story to the News of the World
for £150,000.
Prior to this, Sir Antony had seemed "the epitome of middle-ranking orthodox Tory establishment achievement": he was Conservative Party
MP
for Colchester
for 30 years, and under Edward Heath
, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
for Defence (Royal Navy) (1972–74).
Louisa Buck said at her father's remembrance service that he had a "lifelong loathing of pomposity, wicked irreverence and dogged loyalty, even when it was against his own interests".
For two years during the 1980s she had a relationship with George Melly
and in his will was left his collection of surrealist books and magazines.
She is the author of Moving Targets 2,. the updated edition of Moving Targets (which she also wrote). This book, published by the Tate Gallery
, gives profiles of the artists, curators, collectors, critics and galleries who contribute to the "best and most challenging art that is being made in Britain". Profiles of artists include Damien Hirst
, Tracey Emin
, Chris Ofili
and Cornelia Parker
; critics include Adrian Searle
, curators, Sir Nicholas Serota
and dealers, Jay Jopling
of the White Cube
gallery. She comments that these "make up only part of the contemporary art world in Britain. Just as there are artists who choose not to respond to the edgy spirit of the times, so there are a great many dealers, curators and critics who do not venture out of their appointed places. However, the subject of this book is the art that sets out to make us look at the world—and ourselves—with new eyes, along with the infrastructure that supports it."
She praises Richard Cork
(art critic for The Times
at the time of the book) for being among the "rare species" who search out the latest developments in contemporary art, in contrast to the conventional outlook of many of his colleagues, who "still feel that art should know its place, which is firmly on a plinth or in a frame." Cork was art critic for the Evening Standard
(1969–83), until "on a black day for contemporary art, he was succeeded by the fulminating Brian Sewell
."
In 2000, she criticised the Stuckists
artists, "I saw the last Stuckists exhibition and some of the work was just plain cack ... There may be a lot of boring conceptual work but to have a grumpy reactionary movement against it is just daft."
In 2004, she compiled a report for the Arts Council
, Market Matters: The dynamics of the contemporary art market. She quoted Thomas Hoving
, former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, "Art is sexy! Art is money-sexy! Art is money-sexy-social-climbing-fantastic!", a description she elsewhere says has "never ... seemed more apt"
In 2005, she was a member of the Turner Prize jury, which awarded the prize to Simon Starling
, whose main exhibit Shedboatshed was a wooden shed he had converted into a boat, sailed down the River Rhine and then turned back into the original shed.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
art critic and contemporary art correspondent for The Art Newspaper
The Art Newspaper
The Art Newspaper is a monthly newspaper about the visual arts based in London.It is published in a newspaper, rather than a magazine, format...
. She was a jurist for the 2005 Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
.
Life
Louisa Buck is the only daughter of the late Sir Antony Buck MPParliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
QC
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
(1926–2003) by his first wife, Judy Grant, from whom he was divorced after 34 years. His marriage to his second wife, Spanish fashion designer, Bienvenida Pérez Blanco, who was 30 years younger than him, ended in scandal, when she admitted adultery with Sir Peter Harding
Peter Harding
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Peter Robin Harding, GCB is a retired Royal Air Force Chief of the Air Staff, and Chief of Defence Staff.-RAF career:...
, the British Chief of the Defence Staff
Chief of the Defence Staff (United Kingdom)
The Chief of the Defence Staff is the professional head of the British Armed Forces, a senior official within the Ministry of Defence, and the most senior uniformed military adviser to the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister...
, and sold her story to the News of the World
News of the World
The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...
for £150,000.
Prior to this, Sir Antony had seemed "the epitome of middle-ranking orthodox Tory establishment achievement": he was Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Colchester
Colchester
Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...
for 30 years, and under Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
A Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the government of the United Kingdom, junior to both a Minister of State and a Secretary of State....
for Defence (Royal Navy) (1972–74).
Louisa Buck said at her father's remembrance service that he had a "lifelong loathing of pomposity, wicked irreverence and dogged loyalty, even when it was against his own interests".
For two years during the 1980s she had a relationship with George Melly
George Melly
Alan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.-Early life and career:He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe...
and in his will was left his collection of surrealist books and magazines.
Career
She writes on contemporary art for a number of different journals, as well as making television appearances.She is the author of Moving Targets 2,. the updated edition of Moving Targets (which she also wrote). This book, published by the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
, gives profiles of the artists, curators, collectors, critics and galleries who contribute to the "best and most challenging art that is being made in Britain". Profiles of artists include Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
, Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
, Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
and Cornelia Parker
Cornelia Parker
Cornelia Ann Parker OBE, RA is an English sculptor and installation artist. -Life and career:Parker studied at Gloucestershire College of Art and Design and Wolverhampton Polytechnic...
; critics include Adrian Searle
Adrian Searle
Adrian Searle is the chief art critic of The Guardian newspaper in Britain, and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter. He curates art shows and also writes fiction.-Career:...
, curators, Sir Nicholas Serota
Nicholas Serota
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota is a British art curator. Serota was director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, before becoming director of the Tate, the United Kingdom's national gallery of modern and British art in 1988. He was awarded a knighthood in 1999. He...
and dealers, Jay Jopling
Jay Jopling
Jeremy "Jay" Jopling is an English art dealer and gallery owner. He is closely associated with the YBA artists and his gallery White Cube represents the commercial interests of YBAs Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin, Marcus Harvey, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Marc Quinn, and Sam Taylor-Wood, whom he...
of the White Cube
White Cube
White Cube is a contemporary art gallery designed by MRJ Rundell & Associates in Hoxton Square in the East End of London Mason's Yard, in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London...
gallery. She comments that these "make up only part of the contemporary art world in Britain. Just as there are artists who choose not to respond to the edgy spirit of the times, so there are a great many dealers, curators and critics who do not venture out of their appointed places. However, the subject of this book is the art that sets out to make us look at the world—and ourselves—with new eyes, along with the infrastructure that supports it."
She praises Richard Cork
Richard Cork
Dr Richard Cork is a British art historian, editor, critic, broadcaster and exhibition curator. He has been an art critic for the Evening Standard, The Listener, The Times and the New Statesman. Cork was also editor for Studio International. He is a past Turner Prize judge.-Life and work:Richard...
(art critic for The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
at the time of the book) for being among the "rare species" who search out the latest developments in contemporary art, in contrast to the conventional outlook of many of his colleagues, who "still feel that art should know its place, which is firmly on a plinth or in a frame." Cork was art critic for the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
(1969–83), until "on a black day for contemporary art, he was succeeded by the fulminating Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell is an English art critic and media personality. He writes for the London Evening Standard and is noted for artistic conservatism and his acerbic view of the Turner Prize and conceptual art...
."
In 2000, she criticised the Stuckists
Stuckism
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
artists, "I saw the last Stuckists exhibition and some of the work was just plain cack ... There may be a lot of boring conceptual work but to have a grumpy reactionary movement against it is just daft."
In 2004, she compiled a report for the Arts Council
Arts Council England
Arts Council England was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bodies for England, Scotland and Wales. It is a non-departmental public body of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport...
, Market Matters: The dynamics of the contemporary art market. She quoted Thomas Hoving
Thomas Hoving
Thomas Pearsall Field Hoving was an American museum executive and consultant and the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.-Biography:...
, former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, "Art is sexy! Art is money-sexy! Art is money-sexy-social-climbing-fantastic!", a description she elsewhere says has "never ... seemed more apt"
In 2005, she was a member of the Turner Prize jury, which awarded the prize to Simon Starling
Simon Starling
Simon Starling is an English conceptual artist and was the winner of the 2005 Turner Prize. He lives and works in Copenhagen and Berlin, and is a professor of art at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main.-Biography:...
, whose main exhibit Shedboatshed was a wooden shed he had converted into a boat, sailed down the River Rhine and then turned back into the original shed.
See also
Other contemporary UK art critics- David LeeDavid Lee (art critic)David Lee is an outspoken, English, contemporary, art critic—condemning conceptual art in general and the Turner Prize in particular...
- Adrian SearleAdrian SearleAdrian Searle is the chief art critic of The Guardian newspaper in Britain, and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter. He curates art shows and also writes fiction.-Career:...
- Brian SewellBrian SewellBrian Sewell is an English art critic and media personality. He writes for the London Evening Standard and is noted for artistic conservatism and his acerbic view of the Turner Prize and conceptual art...
- Sarah KentSarah KentSarah Kent is a British art critic, formerly the art editor of the weekly London 'what's on' guide Time Out. She was an early supporter of the Young British Artists in general, and Tracey Emin in particular, helping her to get early exposure. This has led to polarised reactions of praise and...
- Waldemar JanuszczakWaldemar JanuszczakWaldemar Januszczak is a British art critic. Formerly the art critic of The Guardian, he now writes for The Sunday Times, and has twice won the Critic of the Year award...
- Matthew CollingsMatthew Collings-Life and career:In one of his books on art, Collings states that, in his early teenage years, he ran away to Canada. This act was preceded by a period of hanging around in a house in Oakley Street, Chelsea, whose residents included members of various rock bands including Mighty Baby and Family...