Contemporary art
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…
Wittily wild visions: Abstract Erotic, at the Courtauld, reviewed
If you came to this show accidentally, or as a layperson, it could confirm any prejudices you might have about…
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…
Absorbingly repellent: Ed Atkins, at Tate Britain, reviewed
In the old days, you’d have to go to a lot of trouble to inhabit another person’s skin. Today you…
If ‘wokeness’ is over, can someone please tell the Fitzwilliam Museum?
Optimists believe that the tide of ‘wokeness’ is now ebbing. If so, the message has not yet reached Cambridge, whose…
In defence of decommissioning
There’s more than a grain of truth in the popular caricature of a curator as a mother hen clucking frantically…
Are kids’ games under threat?
We hear a lot about the rights of the child, but the first I heard of the child’s right to…
The mesmerising Olympic posters designed by the likes of Warhol and Whiteread
You could be forgiven for assuming that the citizens of Paris weren’t exactly bursting with joy at the prospect of…
It’s time to free art from being ‘interactive’ and ‘immersive’
The American artist and critic Brad Troemel once pointed out that art galleries have all turned into a kind of…
The latest Venice Biennale is ideologically and aesthetically bankrupt
Last week’s opening of the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale marks a watershed for the art world. In much…
‘You cannot begin by calling me France’s most famous living artist!’: Sophie Calle interviewed
‘You cannot begin by calling me France’s most famous living artist!’ Thus Sophie Calle objected to the first line of…
Master of all trades
The busiest show in Edinburgh must be Grayson Perry: Smash Hits which, a month into its run, still has people…
A seasonal folly
As I sat down at this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, I overheard a curious exchange. ‘You mustn’t create art within art,’…
Station to station
Exiting Peckham Rye station, you’re not aware of it, but standing on the platform you can see a mansard roof…
The dying of the light
Cornelia Parker wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but when she was growing up her German godparents…
Blowing hot and cold
A ‘Ghost Shop’ has appeared between Domino’s Pizza and Shoe Zone on Sunderland High Street. Look through the laminated window…
Around the world in 80 studios
Picture the artist’s studio: if what comes to mind is the romantic image of a male painter at his easel…
A new Arab spring?
Stuart Jeffries on Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning art scene
Gothic horror meets Acorn Antiques
Louise Bourgeois was 62 and recently widowed when she first used soft materials in her installation ‘The Destruction of the…
Beano rules
Stuart Jeffries on the cultural influence of the comic that said it was good to be bad
Painting everywhere
There’s a faint scent of desperation wafting through the Frieze tent this year. Pre–pandemic, this was where you came to…
