26 July 2017 • Syndicate
Gucci pays homage to sci-fi cinema, Kenzo is referencing the faded glamour of La Dolce Vita and Calvin Klein thinks we’re in the middle of the apocalypse. This autumn’s fashion campaign ads are a reflection of a bleak and astounded age
13 July 2017 • Mark Westall
Tate Modern, London
Searing artistic responses to the agony of America’s racial struggle sit alongside powerful abstracts by forgotten artists. This compelling show puts the battle for civil rights in a brutal, brilliant new light
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
8 April 2017 • Syndicate
Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana, Venice
Artist has once again found the underwater grotto in his mind where monsters live, making a fool out of all of us who lost faith
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
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
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
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
2 December 2016 • Syndicate
It tends to be ignored by art prizes, but painting is trendier than ever – and makes conceptual art look elitist and out of touch
1 July 2016 • Syndicate
Royal Academy, London
The artist’s humorous portraits, all with the same yellow chair, are a superheated pageant of fashion and pattern
2 June 2016 • Mark Westall
The paint-splattered gloves are proof that we worship artists’ relics – from Turner’s paintbox to Pollock’s brushes – as traces of genius in their own right
7 March 2016 • Syndicate
Gabriele Finaldi is right. The Tate shouldn’t have exclusive access to 20th-century art. It’s time to end these closed-minded historical art wars
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?
15 February 2016 • Mark Westall
Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch, Netherlands
An astonishing homecoming for this madly inventive artist sets the grotesque against a deep but compassionate melancholy that burns into your soul
21 January 2016 • Staff
Emin’s latest venture – a designer jewellery line – reveals in miniature her strengths as an artist who always has something new and eloquent to say
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
9 December 2015 • Mark Westall
Wonder at Botticini’s Paradise, see Turner’s bracing vistas in Edinburgh, and explore the roots of the European winter festival at the V&A
26 November 2015 • Mark Westall
White Cube, London
For their eight-millionth exhibition, the naughty boys of art are showing Banners that could be slight and trite – but actually turn out to be nasty prophecies for our dreadful age
18 October 2015 • Mark Westall
Wellcome Collection, London
States of Mind is a fun installation of coloured mist that feels like swimming through a painting by Monet – but it is light entertainment, nothing more
27 August 2015 • Mark Westall
London show will feature modern artwork, fashion, film and music inspired by the Renaissance artist, as well as large collection of original Botticelli paintings
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?
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
12 June 2015 • Mark Westall
A Bexhill-on-Sea retrospective of mind-bending curve paintings shows why Riley is Britain’s most significant modern artist
7 June 2015 • Staff
He paints with simple black lines and primary colours, and most of his characters don’t even have faces. Yet Julian Opie captures our world in stunning detail
