Joseph Beuys
![English National Opera's triumphant new production of Harrison Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus, directed by Daniel Kramer. [Photo: Alistair Muir]](https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2019/10/Opera_Exhibitions.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275)
A triumph: ENO’s Mask of Orpheus reviewed
ENO’s Mask of Orpheus is a triumph. It’s also unintelligible. Even David Pountney, who produced the original ENO staging in…
In defence of conceptual art
At the tail end of last year, an artist called Peter Goodfellow mounted an exhibition of paintings titled Treason of…
A lot of art is trickery - and all the better for it
One day, in the autumn of 1960, a young Frenchman launched himself off a garden wall in a suburban street…
From classical to post-modern: a beginner’s guide
My career at school and after was greatly enhanced by a series of books called The Bluffer’s Guide to….These gave…
'I like vanished things': Anselm Kiefer on art, alchemy and his childhood
Martin Gayford talks to a surprisingly jolly Anselm Kiefer about art and metamorphosis
