The Turner Prize is only 50 per cent dreadful
Nobody ever believes me when I tell them that my relatives founded Middlesbrough but it’s entirely true. Having raised the…
The new fourth plinth is decidedly misjudged
As I sat down to write this article, an artist friend phoned me to deliver a pithy but convincing defence…
Finally, a proper, grown-up retrospective from the Tate
A month ago in Hampstead, a work of art stopped me in my tracks. The piece was a vast rectangular…
Why does anyone take Ai Weiwei seriously?
When Ai Weiwei (b.1957) arrived in Europe in 2015, fresh from state-imposed house arrest, he was greeted as a hero.…
Damien Hirst should burn down his gallery
I love my friends at the loucher fringes of the art world, but every now and again, someone does something…
Anish Kapoor – spectacular, pompous and vulgar
I miss the New Labour years, when the government gushed money at cultural initiatives and Britain, previously a backwater in…
Head to Deptford for one of the exhibitions of the year
Grim news from gallery-land, where even Manhattan’s mega-blue chips are shedding jobs by the truckload. ‘The market’s fucked,’ one soundbite-handy…
The Venice Biennale was just that bit worse than usual
The 61st Venice Biennale arrived freighted with portent. To cut a long story short: Russia and Israel were invited to…
The weakness of the V&A East Museum
I’d just emerged from Stratford station when I realised it had been almost a decade to the day since I’d…
Brooklyn’s answer to Nathan Barley has struck gold
I was on the way to Cecily Brown’s exhibition at the Serpentine last week when I heard that Kensington Gardens…
In defence of museum charges
It occurs to me only now that I might have spent far too much time in France. Indeed, so familiar…
I miss post-internet art
I got my first paid writing gig back in the early 2010s, for an online magazine fixated on the then-current…
Warhol meets Rauschenberg: John Giorno retrospective reviewed
At the end of last week, I caught a budget flight to Milan to see a woman. As soon as…
Does Tate’s director care about art?
I met the Tate’s outgoing director Maria Balshaw only once, back when she was in Manchester running both the Whitworth…
Why is divorce so seldom addressed in art?
Two years ago I was flown to Reykjavik to interview the Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson. It was a weird…
London’s stupidest gallery
Everyone loves a private view, and I am no exception. I don’t know how many hours I must have spent…
The best artist alive? Probably
Taking place every October in Regent’s Park, the Frieze fair is probably the biggest event in London’s art calendar. It…
The best Turner Prize in years
So, the Turner Prize: where do we start? It’s Britain’s most prestigious art award, one that used to mean something…
I’ve had it with Anselm Kiefer
August is always a crap month for exhibitions in London. The collectors are elsewhere, the dealers are presumably hot on…
Beguiling grot, TfL surrealism and Insta-art: contemporary art roundup
Last month, I got the train down to Margate to interview the Egyptian-Armenian artist Anna Boghiguian (b. 1946), whose exhibition…
London’s best contemporary art show is in Penge
If you’ve been reading the more excitable pages of the arts press lately, you might be aware that the London…
Decent redesign, ravishing rehang: the new-look National Gallery reviewed
A little under a year ago, it emerged that builders working on the redevelopment of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing…
The polarising poet, sculptor and ‘avant-gardener’ who maintained a private militia
Not many artists engage in the maintenance of a private militia, and it seems fair to assume that those who…
A blast: Leigh Bowery!, at Tate Modern, reviewed
Tate Modern’s latest exhibition is a bizarre proposition on so many levels. Its subject, the Australian designer, performer, provocateur and…
We’ve got Francis Bacon all wrong
You have to hand it to the curators of this excellent survey of Francis Bacon’s portraits. Not only have they…
