postmodernism
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…
Nietzsche’s thinking seems destined to be mangled and misunderstood
Two Italian editors, determined to rescue the philosopher from Nazi associations, find their concern with philological truth derided by French postmodernists
The new orthodoxy
The decolonisers in Britain’s universities are not just trying to defend their views. They are seeking to upend the free market in ideas by imposing them, says Doug Stokes
Linguistic games
David Shields is an American author who has decided to collate many of the questions he’s been asked in interviews…
High Jencks
An editor once told me: always look at the loos. It was remarkable, she said, how many grand cultural projets,…
The death of discourse
Liberal values are under attack on two flanks. Those of us who think extensive freedom of expression, universal human rights…
What is the relationship between truth and accuracy? The Lifespan of a Fact reviewed
At the time, I’m sure it all seemed absolutely hilarious. It was in 2012 that W.W. Norton first published The…
In praise of cultural elitism
At present we have a series of ‘culture wars’ over a wide range of issues — race, gender, sexuality, power…
Notre Dame is an architectural nullity
Notre Dame is only important from a Shakespeare’s-birthplace point of view. Architecturally it is a nullity beside the cathedrals of…
![Twiggy photographed by Justin de Villeneuve in the Rainbow Room at Big Biba, early 1970s. [JUSTIN DE VILLENEUVE]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/USE_JDV_TW046.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
A short history of art deco – from high art to two-tone shoes, garden gates to Twiggy
On 10 September 1973 the 1930s Kensington High Street department store formerly known as Derry & Toms reopened as Big…
William Forsythe on the day the US government threatened to arrest him
William Forsythe has been called a lot of things in his four decades as a dancemaker: wilful provocateur, ‘pretentious as…
Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Marx’s detritus
Yassmin Abdel-Magied recently published a piece in The Guardian Australia lambasting her critics as being merely ‘afraid of a young…
Gaudy! Bright! Loud! Fun!
Best of postmodernism: is that an oxymoron? Jonathan Meades thinks not
