art blog since 2009
A spare ticket became available for Paul McCarthy: Selected Video Works (1970-2025) at the Rio cinema in Dalston. But when I tried to interest my brother, he sent a text saying, “I’m not sure I’m really in the mood for 3 hours of challenging and potentially disturbing imagery.” That said, I’m not sure I was …
July 12, 2026
I’m not calling for a cessation of all music and dancing until WWIII ends, but I am calling for a ban on Britpop. It just seemed a bit much to be bouncing around to unofficial national anthems at a time when our nation is aiding and abetting war crimes and an emboldened far right are …
June 19, 2026
I didn’t exhaust the possibilities for seeing art in this year’s Brighton Festival. But I was glad to have caught both the exhibitons here. If you saw either, let me know in the comments! Tender Exchange Hold a wooden heart and privately speak into it. Speak what is in your own flesh and blood heart. …
June 2, 2026
“It’s a bubble”, Thomas Hirschhorn confirms. I find him immersed in the Pavillon Sicli in Geneva, where he is resident twelve hours a day, seven days a week, for some 75 days. It’s only half of a surprise that this is a work of what he calls Présence et Production. And I don’t miss the …
May 20, 2026
Don’t know where my brains are now but last week they were at Goldsmiths CCA where I caught an archival exhibition dedicated to the output of Paper Tiger Television. Beginning in 1981, this collective (aka PTTV) has broadcast some 400 episodes of a public access show that was to turn its gaze back on the …
April 13, 2026
The manufacture and sale of a fighter jet entails a complex and shady web; such planes have wide supply chains and reach the market in lots destined for different client states. But research bodies put an incriminating figure on the contribution of UK arms manufacturers towards Israel’s aerial war on Gaza; The Ploughshares Project and …
March 18, 2026
Like a steel tiffin box the size of a small packing case, the bioscope gleams in the fairy light ambience of an artisanal market in the centre of Delhi. On its polygonal front are circular portals the size of pickle jars with tin lids hanging on chain. Hurdy-gurdy handles sit atop, used to stir whatever …
March 4, 2026
The Orobie Biennial, to be found in the Bergamo Alps of Northern Italy, draws together and curates a rolling programme of many peaks. Exhibitions, installations, interventions are all set among some of Europe’s most scenic mountains. Interesting venues for visual art, in this region better known for hiking, have included a deep chamber in a …
February 23, 2026
All at once I was on the hard shoulder of a motorway. Police were cordoning off the scene of disturbance. Lorries thundered past. Rain hammered down. Paramedics were on the scene. And, for good measure, a large dog was barking at me. This was my introduction to CAVE, a simulation machine and teaching tool at …
February 4, 2026
There is a city which seems only to be famous for the film named after it. Aside from an epic mosque, Casablanca has few other claims to fame.* But the claim to have inspired a movie which some still consider to be one of the greatest of all time is strong. The connection is set …
January 12, 2026