Contemporary art
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…
Fit for a king
What is the National Gallery playing at? Why, in this summer of stop-start tropical storms, is the NG making visitors…
Apocalypse now
Stuart Jeffries takes the ferry to Orford Ness, a strange shingle spit on the Suffolk coast, where art mingles with death
Turner Prize shortlist
In 2019 I was asked to be on the jury for the Turner Prize. I was pretty happy about this.…
The two Popes
A party of disorderly couples has gatecrashed the Picture Gallery at Bath’s Holburne Museum, climbing on to the antique furniture,…
Selling out
Stuart Jeffries on the artists ensnared by the capitalist system they affect to despise
Soul-dead crypto world
Some things are explained so many times that they become unexplainable: we can only relate to them as something complicated…
Sitting pretty
With the arts world still largely in hibernation, the launch of a big podcast is as close as we get…
The bimbofication of art
Galleries are awash with gimmicky paintings that look like they’ve been designed by algorithm. Dean Kissick on the rise of zombie figuration
A salmagundi of tedium
The White Pube started life as an influential art blog, written by Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente. The…
Culture club
In Geoff Dyer’s Jeff in Venice, the protagonist, at the Venice Biennale, muses on installations. ‘Ideally, the perfect art installation…
Age of stuckism
I’m in Mayfair and I’m boarding an airplane. Or rather, I’m boarding an approximation of an airplane. In the centre…
