God, sex or evolution – why did humans start making art?
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
Tag: Jonathan Jones on art
Feminism doesn’t need more female statues – it needs political action
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.
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
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
With his song It’s You, Turner-winning artist Martin Creed has made the perfect antidote to the commercialised positivity of Christmas
A second coat: why painting is the comeback art of the 21st century
It tends to be ignored by art prizes, but painting is trendier than ever – and makes conceptual art look elitist and out of touch
Francis Bacon’s painting gloves are going to auction
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
Damien Hirst and Picasso: coming soon to a National Gallery near you?
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
Warhol demonised Nixon. Heartfield took on Hitler. Where is Trump’s artistic mauling?
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?
Tracey Emin’s luxury penis bracelet works like a charm on me
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
Jeff Koons: master of parody or great American con man?
The Koons mystery deepens as another charge of plagiarism has been lobbed at the artist. But the latest claims are truly shocking
Anish Kapoor is right to be livid about China stealing his big Bean sculpture
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
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
Is America’s greatest art heist about to be solved?
There’s no romanticising the $500m Stewart Gardner Museum robbery of 1990. It was an attack on world culture. Could new footage of the robbers casing the joint help retrieve the masterpieces?
Should the public vote for the artist on the new £20 note? No way – they’ve got terrible taste
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
I scream for ice-cream: is this the most nauseating food art ever?
Michael Massaia believes his melted puddles of multicoloured ice-cream are abstract art – but they just make me sick. All that’s missing is a hot pavement and some flies
Don’t be sniffy about oil-rich states, @ArtDubai funds the world’s most radical art
It’s not all super-yachts and spending binges: Art Dubai, which begins this week, is opening doors for some of the most marginalised voices in art
Kapoor’s bottomless whirlpool: a sublime spectacle from the magician of modern art
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
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
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
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
Space Jam, Daddies ketchup – and other bizarre inspirations for high art
With his homage to the 90s animated film starring Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny, LA artist Devin Troy Strother joins the canon of pop art greats who immortalise funny objects
Barnett Newman’s ‘glimpses of the sublime’ are a bargain at any price
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
The singer has sold a painting by Léger to fund girl’s education: the work’s modern beauty is a paean to strong women