Videogames are a remarkable artform that can help save UK culture
18 September 2017 • Mark Westall
Videogames speak culture with ever increasing fluency, but cultural policy doesn’t speak much videogame (yet)
Tag: Blogposts
How galleries became the best places to rave
4 July 2017 • Syndicate
Bad sound and indifferent crowds have traditionally made galleries dangerous places for live music, but a new breed of curators are changing the tune
God, sex or evolution – why did humans start making art?
25 April 2017 • Syndicate
A new Australian exhibition suggests art was first made to attract mates, signal dangers or mimic nature. But this reduces a mysterious impulse to a biological drive
Feminism doesn’t need more female statues – it needs political action
29 March 2017 • Mark Westall
Bulgarian artist Erka has rightly protested against Sofia’s total lack of statues of women by erecting her own pop-up versions. But permanent statues don’t advance feminism – they trap people in the past
Damien Hirst gives first glimpse of new Venice art.
23 February 2017 • Syndicate
With mysterious underwater objects hinting at monsters and ancient civilisations – including a $4m Medusa – Damien Hirst could be about to reverse years of creative decline
Welcome to the world’s smallest art fair – on a disappearing speck of sand
26 January 2017 • Mark Westall
The art at the Biennale de la Biche off Guadeloupe is set to disappear into the sea, thereby mirroring the futility and emptiness of elite events like Venice Biennale
Martin Creed’s bleak anti-carol should be Christmas No 1
7 December 2016 • Mark Westall
With his song It’s You, Turner-winning artist Martin Creed has made the perfect antidote to the commercialised positivity of Christmas
Marisol: the forgotten star of pop art
10 May 2016 • Syndicate
Once as famous and influential as Andy Warhol, the artist, who has died aged 85, fell into obscurity – but her enigmatic work is sure to be rediscovered and endure
Warhol demonised Nixon. Heartfield took on Hitler. Where is Trump’s artistic mauling?
3 March 2016 • Staff
The best political art is always viciously negative. And the monsterly qualities of Donald Trump are crying out for some hard-hitting mockery. So where are the likes of Chuck Close and Jeff Koons?
Jeff Koons: master of parody or great American con man?
16 December 2015 • Mark Westall
The Koons mystery deepens as another charge of plagiarism has been lobbed at the artist. But the latest claims are truly shocking
Smartphone backlash: the mobile that gives you your life back
22 September 2015 • Mark Westall
The Punkt phone, launched at the London design festival, lets you call and text. It also has nice buttons and is easy to hold. And that’s about it. Would you pay £229 for it?
Anish Kapoor is right to be livid about China stealing his big Bean sculpture
14 August 2015 • Mark Westall
A city in Zinjiang has a new public artwork that’s suspiciously similar to Kapoor’s Bean in Chicago – and the sculptor is incensed, though this is just the latest act of copycat culture in China. Are people in the west too precious about intellectual property rights?
Why Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy selfie would turn Titian on
12 August 2015 • Mark Westall
Kardashian’s selfie is a hymn to the female body that harks back to the liberating portrayals of ample women in Renaissance and baroque art – and proves that ours is the most misogynist age in history
Should the public vote for the artist on the new £20 note? No way – they’ve got terrible taste
22 May 2015 • Mark Westall
The Bank of England wants the public to pick an artist to appear on the new £20. Here’s why it’s a gamble that will never pay off
REVIEW: Deutsche Börse 2015 – shadowy burqas v epic towerblocks
19 April 2015 • Staff
Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse spent six years photographing every door and window of a 54-storey tower in Johannesburg, while Viviane Sassen proves herself a sculptor of light. Set beside heartbreaking portraits of LGBTI South Africans and Russians letting loose on the beach, this year’s shortlist is full of intrigue
Kapoor’s bottomless whirlpool: a sublime spectacle from the magician of modern art
13 February 2015 • Mark Westall
I used to think Anish Kapoor was just another contemporary artist with nothing to say – but his latest installation shows just how daring he really is
Cogs in the machine: how the art market became obsessed with money
11 February 2015 • Mark Westall
With a Richter selling for £30.4m and a Gauguin setting a new record for the most expensive painting ever sold, profit has disgustingly eclipsed creativity in the art world
The world’s biggest gif? Art’s biggest hype more like
27 January 2015 • Mark Westall
We may be able to see it from space, but the world’s largest gif is really just an advertising stunt. We still need a real artist to create the first digital masterpiece
Why the art world needs to ditch the rich Russians
12 January 2015 • Mark Westall
As Russian investors snap up an even greater stake in the contemporary art world, Jonathan Jones asks if there can ever be a truly independent art press
David Armstrong: photographer of outsiders lately embraced by fashion
28 October 2014 • Mark Westall
Armstrong, who has died aged 60, had a contrasting style to his great friend Nan Goldin, but their subjects were intertwined
Medieval master Simone Martini comes to London – the week in art
18 May 2013 • Mark Westall
Martini’s paintings go on show at the National Gallery to celebrate the Barber Institute’s 80th birthday, and Gerhard Richter sets a world record – all in your weekly art roundup
Barnett Newman’s ‘glimpses of the sublime’ are a bargain at any price
16 May 2013 • Mark Westall
Meaning and dream collide in Barnett Newman’s work: that’s why the abstract expressionist’s Onement VI fetched $43.8m
Madonna sells Fernand Léger’s modern material girls
9 May 2013 • Mark Westall
The singer has sold a painting by Léger to fund girl’s education: the work’s modern beauty is a paean to strong women
Andrea Gjestvang wins L’Iris d’Or at Sony world photography awards
27 April 2013 • Mark Westall
Norwegian photographer, 32, holds off competition with poignant portraits of Anders Behring Breivik massacre survivors