Recommended by Craig Burnett
Based in London, Craig Burnett is the author of Jeff Wall (2005), Philip Guston: The Studio (2014 / 2020) and Bucolic Stop (poems, 2019). He has written extensively on contemporary art, including recent essays on Luca Bertolo, Emma Hart, Rachel Howard, Michael Simpson, John Stezaker and Stephen Waddell, among others. His website (a work in progress) is craignburnett.com.
What is your favourite art space to visit? Somewhere you have been that had brought you joy.
The National Gallery, London. It holds inexhaustible experiences.
What have you seen in the past year which made you think you are looking at a new way of experiencing art? This can be an artwork, an exhibition, or a space.
I went to Arezzo last year to see Piero’s Legend of the True Cross. I’d familiarised myself with the work while writing about Philip Guston, but never craned my neck in the chapel. The way the paintings were piled on top of each other, depicting everything from battle scenes to intimate moments, made me wonder about the imaginative demands that the cycle of pictures made on its original viewers, and how our contemporary understanding of narrative is probably too linear, or defined by our experience of the cinema.
What show, gallery, institution or museum have you visited that you thought was worth the travel?
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden. Astonishing collection. Re-opened February 2020.
If time and budget were not an obstacle, where would you like to visit (or revisit) from the places listed on The Art Pilgrim?
I’d love to visit Naoshima. In my twenties, I lived in Japan for a year, but I haven’t been back since. In addition to Naoshima, I’d like revisit Japanese gardens, including Kōraku-en, which is in nearby Okayama.
In your opinion, which city, other than London, Berlin or New York, has a really interesting and exciting art scene?
Last summer I went to Athens for the first time in 30 years and the city was abuzz with younger artists seeking an alternative to the escalating costs of Berlin or the exigencies of London. You can always fall back on its glorious past and look at Mycenaean jewellery, or visit the new Acropolis museum.
If the world were coming to an end, and there was space for only one museum collection on the spaceship, which collection would you nominate and why?
How about the Metropolitan, NYC. It has everything from Roman sarcophagi to Yuan dynasty scrolls, not to mention a great photography collection. And it has one of my favourite paintings, El Greco’s View of Toledo (1596-1600).
