Art
The Restless Spirit of Lubaina Himid
Lubaina Himid's Tate exhibition is a conversation, a rhetorical question, an experiment. Like opera, from which it draws its inspiration, it aims to be “a total work of art.”
Naomi Polonsky
Naomi Polonsky is a London-based curator, art critic, and translator. She studied at the University of Oxford and the Courtauld Institute of Art and has experience working at the Hermitage Museum and Tate Modern.
Art
Jean Dubuffet’s Highs and (Controversial) Lows
Curiously, Dubuffet’s anti-hierarchical approach to art did not translate to similar views on society.
News
Climate Activists Occupy London’s Science Museum to Protest Shell Sponsorship
During the two-day protests, activists explained that they “won’t stand by and let the Science Museum green-wash Shell’s reputation.”
Featured
Jennifer Packer’s Lucid Tributes to Black Life
In Packer’s canvases, swathes of abstraction express aspects of human experience that lie beyond representation.
Art
A Beguiling Look at the Biases of AI
With Bloom, Trevor Paglen collapses distinctions between the real and virtual, laying bare the prejudices embedded in supposedly objective artificial intelligence systems.
Art
Toyin Ojih Odutola’s Skillfully Flips the Script of Art History
In A Countervailing Theory, her current exhibition at the Barbican Centre, Ojih Odutola’s alternative histories take on a more epic, mythic scale.
Books
28 Years of Miranda July, Master of Self-Fashioning
Titled simply Miranda July, Prestel’s excellent new “mid-career retrospective” of the artist highlights July’s enduring interest in the very darkest aspects of human existence.
Film
The Life of Clyfford Still, the Most "Irascible" Abstract Expressionist
The documentary Lifeline recounts Still’s life, career, and legacy — and how they were shaped by his cantankerous temperament.
Art
The Untamed Jungles of Vivian Suter’s Abstract Paintings
While the ecological aspect of Suter’s work is particularly timely, her obvious enjoyment of pure color and form makes her artworks all the more enduring.
News
Anti-Oil Activists Stage Largest Protest Yet at British Museum, With Trojan Horse in Tow
Hundreds of activists occupied the British Museum for a protest lasting over two days straight, coinciding with the BP-sponsored exhibition Troy: Myth and Reality.
News
The K-Pop Boyband BTS Launched an International Art Project
BTS, described as the “biggest boy band in the world,” announced an international public art project with 22 contemporary artists across five cities. Its first exhibitions opened at London’s Serpentine Galleries and Berlin’s Gropius Bau.
Art
Visions of Home that Are Gut-Wrenching, Contemplative, and Funny
In Homelands, artists variously characterize home as “a transient dwelling,” “an ongoing process,” and “other people.”