Just Stop Oil attack the Rokeby Venus: how the group is using the suffragettes’ disruptive tactics to shape public opinion
Two Just Stop Oil protesters have smashed the glass on the Rokeby Venus by Diego Velázquez at the National Gallery in London. This, you might be surprised to hear, is not the first time this painting has been the target…
Grayson Perry: exploring what it is to be human with humour, irreverence and excess
Smash Hits, the new Grayson Perry retrospective at Edinburgh’s National Galleries, spans the 40-year career of the recently knighted artist. It’s an exhibition packed with scrutiny of the entanglements of self and society, as Perry casts up snippets of the…
Prison food: what we learned from organising food-themed art workshops for women prisoners
There are two common misconceptions about food in British prisons: that it is either not fit for human consumption, or too luxurious to be enjoyed by those in prison. The artworks produced by the women prisoners in our project broke…
Marina Abramović retrospective celebrates the grand dame of performance art – but questions the genre’s future
In 1974, Marina Abramović performed a career-defining work at a small experimental gallery in Naples, Italy. The Serbian artist stood naked next to a table on which she had arranged 72 objects associated with pleasure and pain. They included a…
Why the Turner prize shortlist is a cultural barometer of our political times
The UK’s biggest prize for contemporary art is back. The 2023 Turner prize shortlist has been announced featuring British artists Jesse Darling, Rory Pilgrim, Ghislaine Leung and Barbara Walker. An exhibition of the artists’ work will go on show at…
Van Gogh Museum at 50: what painter’s letters to his family expose about why he became an artist
Vincent van Gogh fits the stereotypical image of the tragic modern artist: the tortured genius and scruffy bohemian battling mental ill-health and lack of recognition from peers and a public who couldn’t appreciate his audacious vision. Now, of course, he…
Van Gogh Museum at 50: how galleries are challenging the ‘tortured genius’ narrative
At the time that Vincent van Gogh was creating his acclaimed work, The Starry Night, he was hospitalised at Saint-Paul de Mausole asylum. He painted the vivid night sky from his room without the bars of his window, editing out…
Jamie Reid: the defiant punk art of the man behind the Sex Pistols’ iconic imagery
The death of graphic designer and activist Jamie Reid earlier this month was a huge loss for both the design community and the political left. Right until his death, Reid made incendiary works that incessantly attacked the political status quo….
