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thedoublenegative.co.uk

@thedoublenegative.co.uk
353 followers 478 following 433 posts

Contemporary, independent arts & culture criticism since 2011 💫 posts by co-founders Mike & Laura 🔥 linktr.ee/thedoublenegative ✍️ @doublenegativeM.bsky.social ✍️ @doublenegativeL.bsky.social

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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 09/07/2026
Today's @artukdotorg.bsky.social #OnlineArtExchange theme is 'sacred symbols'. Our choice is Louise Giovanelli's Mise en scène (2025), an ambiguous painting suggesting one particular reading when, in fact, it is from a found image (a 1970s film) depicting a woman taking communion.
Louise Giovanelli's Mise en scène (2025) sees a woman caught in ecstasy - not of sexual pleasure, but in taking communion.
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Mike Pinnington ✍️ @doublenegativem.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
I wrote about painting's continuing engagement with photography and film 📷🎥 📷 Louise Giovanelli, ‘Mise en scène’ (2025) www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2026/07/on-r...
Mise en scène (2025), a painting by Louise Giovanelli - depicting a woman in apparent ecstasy - of a found image of a 1970s film.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
I had a piece commissioned by The Yale Review. However, since they published Christopher Sorrentino's sophomoric, frankly pathetic ode to using generative AI for his writing, I have told them in the strongest possible terms that I no longer have any interest in writing for them.
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 24/06/2026
NEW//Questing, Colour, and Form ZAUM! – Reviewed Reckoning with uncertain times, a group exhibition taking its name from a century old movement is a tonic, says @doublenegativem.bsky.social www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2026/06/ques...
Exhibition leaflet for ZAUM! Pink text diagonally (l-r) spelling Z A U M ! on a blue groundList of exhibiting artists in pink text on white ground A wall of five abstract works in ZAUM!Seven abstract works on white gallery wall in the exhibition ZAUM!
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Mike Pinnington ✍️ @doublenegativem.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
From its landscape and self-image (commonly projected onto the silver screen) – here is a reflected, blurry version of what used to be called the American dream, and Ruscha gives us a front-row seat 📽️🎞️ www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2026/06/arti... 📷 Standard Study # 3 1963 © Ed Ruscha
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 14/06/2026
It's the final day of Artist Rooms: Ed Ruscha @ Tate Liverpool. Read @doublenegativem.bsky.social's review >>>
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 13/06/2026
The great American road trip – the frontier and its trappings – serve as departure point for artist Ed Ruscha, and a tightly focused Tate Liverpool exhibition, finds @doublenegativem.bsky.social www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2026/06/arti... 📷 © Ed Ruscha
A pleasingly grainy, black and white photograph of Greenblatt’s Deli, part of Ed Ruscha's Sunset Strip Portfolio. To the right, you can see palm trees and, in the background, maybe the Hollywood hills? An onamatapeic work, this print has HONK in yellow block capitals against a blue ground.
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 11/06/2026
From the Archive: Following Senna (2010) and Amy (2015), director Asif Kapadia turned his attention to profiling the destructive genius of Diego Armando Maradona >>> ⚽🏆 www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2019/06/dieg...
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Diego Maradona's Goal of the Century Mexico 86
Alt: Diego Maradona's Goal of the Century Mexico 86, in which the Argentine genius demolishes England
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 11/06/2026
From the Archive: World Cup Clichés: Graphic Design’s Approach To Football ⚽ 🏆 www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2014/07/worl...
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 11/06/2026
Today's @artukdotorg.bsky.social #OnlineArtExchange is football for the World Cup ⚽ 📷 Cevdet Erek, Away Terrace (Us and Them), 2025. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at 20 Jordan Street. Photography by Mark McNulty.
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 03/06/2026
Reading Ruscha: "The letters OK (1990) perhaps reference Oklahoma, the state’s abbreviated form. It is worth noting that Ed Ruscha is an ‘Okie’ – a migrant to Los Angeles who has had to learn how to read this city." www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2026/06/read... 📷 © Ed Ruscha
The letters OK in salmon caps on a black ground. This is Ed Ruscha's OK (State I) 1990. ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. © Ed Ruscha
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 01/06/2026
For the first time in a very long time, here's to starting the week off right, with our pick of the listings. Featuring talks, exhibitions, screenings, live film music and more, it's Culture Diary w/c 01-06-2026 www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2026/06/cult...
Director Celine Sciamma on set with the stars of her film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 01/06/2026
For the first time in a very long time, here's to starting the week off right, with our pick of the listings. Featuring talks, exhibitions, screenings, live film music and more, it's Culture Diary w/c 01-06-2026 www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2026/06/cult...
Director Celine Sciamma on set with the stars of her film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 01/06/2026
Hello! It's been a while. There might be some activity on the website today. By means of (re) introduction, since 2011, we've been writing about art, design, film & music. Catch us here: www.thedoublenegative.co.uk
thedoublenegative.co.uk
The Double Negative
Arts criticism & cultural commentary since 2011
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 19/05/2026
Steve McQueen's Grenfell, showing @thebluecoat.bsky.social Tuesday–Sunday, 11.00–17.00, is essential viewing. The film reminds us we mustn't look away, mustn't forget.
Aerial view of London from the opening moments of Steve McQueen's Grenfell film
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 18/05/2026
Screening tonight @ picturehouse @factliverpool.bsky.social, Soviet era folk horror, Viy, based on the Nikolai Gogol novella of the same name. A tale of the grotesque, it weaves together witchcraft, fear and forbidden desire to great effect.
A film still from Soviet era folk horror, Viy. Here, we find a young man in fear of his mortal soul, stalked by a doomed revenant woman.
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Mike Pinnington ✍️ @doublenegativem.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Steve McQueen: Grenfell | Tate Liverpool + RIBA North share.google/00Zk65KkxE9O...
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Steve McQueen: Grenfell | Tate Liverpool + RIBA North
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Art Herstory @artherstory.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
New Books About Women Artists | Jan–March 2026 artherstory.net/new-books-ab... #newbooksaboutwomenartists #womenartists #artherstory
10 book covers arranged in 2 rows of 5 each. All of the books have to do with one or more women artists.
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 07/05/2026
Today's @artukdotorg.bsky.social #OnlineArtExchange theme is ‘Urban landscapes’. We've long been fans of Mandy Payne: "I wanted to work with materials that were integral to sites I was depicting." 📷 Urban Geometry I; Remnants Of A Welfare State; For The Many Not The Few. Images by Mandy Payne
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Art UK @artukdotorg.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Today's #OnlineArtExchange theme is ‘Urban landscapes’ for Jock McFadyen with Jem Finer: Underground (and Surface) Exhibition at Guildhall Art Gallery 🖼️ Join in by picking an artwork and using the hashtag 🙌 📷 Paul Clarke courtesy Guildhall Art Gallery
Close-up of a weathered Bank station sign with the iconic red circle and blue bar on a dark, textured wall.Three people sit on a wooden bench viewing a large painting of Walthamstow Stadium with a blue sky backdrop in an art gallery.
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Mike Pinnington ✍️ @doublenegativem.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Here's curator Darren Pih on Yves Klein (sharing on the artist's birthday): "His prodigious activities anticipated many of the movements that developed in the 1960s." 📷 Harry Shunk and János Kender, Yves Klein’s Leap Into the Void, 1960 www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2016/11/i-wi...
Artist Yves Klein leaps into the Void in a photograph made by Harry Shunk and János Kender, in 1960
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Art UK @artukdotorg.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Thanks for joining this week's #OnlineArtExchange 🌼🌸 Next week's theme is ‘women artists’ for Making Her Mark: A Celebration of Women in Art at Penlee House Gallery & Museum 'Spring Evening' by Joan Elizabeth Baker (1922–2017) © the artist's estate. 📷 Aberystwyth University
Group of people walking along a curved road near industrial buildings under a dusky sky with a white dog in the foreground.
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Mike Pinnington ✍️ @doublenegativem.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
I have a draft of the presentation I'm giving tomorrow at Who Does Not Envy with Us Is Against Us: A Conference on Working-Classness as Method in Creative Practice. It's tentatively titled: A Working Classness Confessional. I jest, but that was my experience in the writing of it. Pretty cathartic.
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Mike Pinnington ✍️ @doublenegativem.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
The great Victor Burgin is a keynote speaker at Chester photography symposium! 📷 Here's a paper based on a 2004 talk he gave on the occasion of a Tate Modern Hopper exhibition ▶️ The Separateness of Things, Victor Burgin – Tate Papers | Tate share.google/SeBjLNzwnU1E...
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The Separateness of Things, Victor Burgin – Tate Papers | Tate
Victor Burgin, The Separateness of Things; Tate Papers no.3
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Victoria Gallery & Museum @victoriagallery.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Join a special in-conversation event with Liverpool-born singer Ivan Stax! Part of Toxteth: The Harlem of Europe exhibition, Ivan chats about the Black music scene in 1950s–60s and shares stories from his own career. 🎟 FREE! 📅 Thurs 23 April, 2pm-3pm 📍VG&M Info: orlo.uk/3ozGN
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 28/03/2026
On The Double Negative, of course ▶️✍️🖼️📽️
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 27/03/2026
100 Years of Bauhaus Dessau bauhaus-dessau.de/veranstaltun...
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Jubiläumsausstellungen - Programm - Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
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Mike Pinnington ✍️ @doublenegativem.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Watching my partner make a presentation on Francesca Woodman. I love her work - a bona fide genius 📷 Francesca Woodman Space², Providence, Rhode Island (1976)
A blurred self-portrait photograph by Francesca Woodman, achieved with long exposure and slow shutter speed
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 21/03/2026
Cover Design Award 2026 shortlist - Penguin Books UK | Official Site share.google/oueCOrCgYP3q...
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Cover Design Award 2026 shortlist
This year, we set briefs to redesign two Fantasy classics. Below are the 20 shortlisted designs from a talented line-up of emerging designers and illustrators. Adult Fiction – Night Watch by Terry Pra...
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 21/03/2026
It's the UN World Day for Glaciers. Laura Robertson spoke with photographer Kristján Maack, who has been documenting Iceland’s epic glaciers for over 40 years 🏔️📷 www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2026/03/the-...
An awe inspiring image of a glacier, taken by Icelandic photographer Kristján Maack
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 20/03/2026
NEW // The Big Interview: ahead of UN World Day for Glaciers, we speak to photographer Kristján Maack’s about his glacier portraits and a disappearing world www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2026/03/the-...
Kristján Maack glacier photography
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 19/03/2026
As we gear up for our return to publishing - on a hopefully regular basis - I'm wondering if what the world wants and needs from arts and culture writing has changed in the last 15 years? Thoughts anyone?
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Mike Pinnington ✍️ @doublenegativem.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Helen Legg appointed artistic director of London's Royal Academy of Arts - The Art Newspaper - International art news and events share.google/hyMSWoLmBFPY...
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Helen Legg appointed artistic director of London's Royal Academy of Arts
Currently director of Tate Liverpool, Legg will be responsible for the RA’s exhibitions, collection and public programme
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 19/03/2026
For today's 'cartoons and comics' @artukdotorg.bsky.social #OnlineArtExchange, we've gone for Paolozzi and his Bunk! series. British pop - often overshadowed by US counterparts - predates the likes of Warhol and Lichtenstein💥 📷 I was a Rich Man’s Plaything, 1972
I was a Rich Man’s Plaything, 1972, Eduardo Paolozzi is a collage made of comic book and advertisement imagery - including a pin-up, coca cola bottle and WWII bomber.
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Mike Pinnington ✍️ @doublenegativem.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Very timely screening of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (2007) @ FACT in Liverpool tonight. An autobiographical coming of age tale, it provides a rare insight into Iran, beyond the narrow western perspective we all know. A great watch. FACT | Persepolis share.google/eKcSgzstknWx...
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Persepolis
STASHED takes us back to ‘07, for its seventh edition, with an animated film that follows an outspoken Iranian girl growing up during and after the Islamic Revolution.
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Liverpool Arab Arts Festival @lpoolarabartsfest.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
We’re hiring a Chief Executive Officer / Artistic Director! You could be our next Chief Executive & Artistic Director if you’re excited by the opportunity to lead a unique organisation at the intersection of arts, culture & community. CEO RECRUITMENT PACK: www.arabartsfestival.com/wp-content/u...
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 08/03/2026
It's #internationalwomensday so we're going to be sharing just a few of our fave female artists. Who are yours?
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Dave PhD @cmsdengl.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
Brigit Riley - St Mary's Hospital
Brigit Riley - St Mary's Hospital corridor painting
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Tade Thompson @tadethompson.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
What's worse than using 'content' to describe artistic work? Using the term 'content industry' to describe basically all art.
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 08/03/2026
It's #internationalwomensday so we're going to be sharing just a few of our fave female artists. Who are yours?
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 08/03/2026
Is Glasgow losing the spaces that made it an arts powerhouse?
theguardian.com
Is Glasgow losing the spaces that made it an arts powerhouse?
The closing of a cluster of leading creative venues has led to dismay and intensified fears the hubs that fostered Glasgow’s celebrated arts scene are disappearing
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 05/03/2026
We're preparing to return from hiatus (teaching and education commitments made it sensible/necessary). #worldbookday seems as good a time as any to make a little post. So, here's some recent additions to the TDN bookshelves. More from us soon ▶️
A Dictionary of Color Combinations, Sanzo WadaArt on My Mind, bell hooks
The Language of Cities, Deyan SudjicGhost of an Idea: Hauntology, Folk Horror and the Spectre of Nostalgia, William Burns
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Charlayn von Solms @charlayn.eurosky.social · 05/03/2026
Today's @artukdotorg.bsky.social #OnlineArtExchange theme is 'Art that explores home'. Here is Ailsa Magnus's "another Brick in the Road" Methley Drive, Leeds, West Yorkshire
A red clay brick bearing the logo "Home Zone" with a naive imatge of a tree laid amongst paving stones.
Source: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/another-brick-in-the-road-316805
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 05/03/2026
Today's @artukdotorg.bsky.social #OnlineArtExchange theme is 'Art that explores home'. Here's Dorothea Tanning's brilliantly creepy, and decidedly uncanny (unheimlich), Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202 1970–3 (© DACS, London).
Dorothea Tanning's uncanny soft sculptures climb the walls and inhabit the floor in her work, Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202, 1970–3
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 04/03/2026
Manchester University Press - Useful Art share.google/IWfiS4PnYHBM...
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Manchester University Press - Useful Art
Useful Art - Browse and buy the Paperback edition of Useful Art by John Byrne
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thedoublenegative.co.uk @thedoublenegative.co.uk · 04/03/2026
Oooh, some cracking ones spring to mind - many of which are more uncanny than 'home' might at first suggest.
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Art UK @artukdotorg.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Tomorrow's #OnlineArtExchange theme is 'Art that explores home' for Catherine Opie: To Be Seen at National Portrait Gallery 🏡 Share an artwork found on artuk.org based on the theme and use the hashtag to take part! 🧑‍🎨 Harry Brooker (1848–1940) 📷 Museum of the Home
Five children engaged in tug-of-war inside a room with scattered toys and furniture.
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Mike Pinnington ✍️ @doublenegativem.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Exhibitions I'm looking forward to in 2026: The Sacred Memory Bank – A new exhibition exploring memory and time at Kirkby Gallery. – Culture Knowsley share.google/Cf54u5fZpveM...
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The Sacred Memory Bank – A new exhibition exploring memory and time at Kirkby Gallery.
Kirkby Gallery is set to open a brand-new collaborative exhibition in the new year. ‘The Sacred Memory Bank,’ which opens to the public on Monday, 19 […]
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Victoria Gallery & Museum @victoriagallery.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Celebrate International Women’s Day with the story of Dame Ethel Smyth – fearless musical pioneer, passionate campaigner for women’s rights, and trailblazer in LGBTQ+ history. ➡️ Dame Ethel Smyth: A Musical Pioneer 📅 10 March, 1pm-2pm 🎟️ Book a FREE spot: orlo.uk/uFaqa
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Rémi Forte @rmfrt.com · 03/03/2026
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