Archive

It was a perfect spring day. The sky was blue; the air was crisp. In the gardens the magnolias and cherry trees had sprung into uplifting blossom. It felt good to be alive. Until I reached Tate Britain. Among our important public galleries, none today feels as unwelcoming, unhappy, mistargeted and badly run as the […]

Halfway through my conversation with David Hockney I hit on a sure-fire way of making pots of money. It’s so good, I may take it on to Dragons’ Den. I’m going to manufacture some mini-Hockneys — tiny wind-up Davids that fit in your pocket — and every time you are feeling gloomy or in need of […]

Edvard Munch’s misfortune was to produce his masterpiece when he was 30 and then spend the next 50 years trying to match the achievement. And failing. The result is an iceberg-shaped career with a shiny bit poking out of the water and a massive slab of sunken effort lurking under the surface. The masterpiece was, […]

I’m stomping through the mean streets of north London with my phone map beeping, searching for a nondescript door with a nondescript number. Behind that door is Grayson Perry. Unfortunately, the phone map is lost, so there’s time to blunder and fret about the confrontation ahead: Grayson Perry. Who the hell is he? On the […]

I have been making a film about erotic art. So, naturally, I have had to seek out the paintings of Stanley Spencer. When it comes to edgy English sexology, Spencer is the gold standard. Or is that the blue standard? But there’s a problem. For a basket of interwoven reasons his paintings have become difficult […]

Tate Modern is not an institution renowned for being funny, but when I read that it was going to mount an exhibition devoted to Leigh Bowery, I guffawed heartily. They’re having a laugh! They really are! The issue with Bowery is that there are so many issues with Bowery. First, he was not an artist. […]

There are some things in life you do not say “No” to. Everybody wants to be on Desert Island Discs. Everybody wants to dance on Strictly. Everybody wants to meet Keanu Reeves. And in the 1980s and 1990s everybody wanted to be in The Face. The Face was more — much more — than a glossy style […]

Thank God for black women artists. In the past two decades they have injected vim, lip and vigour into contemporary art. From Njideka Akunyili Crosby to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Amy Sherald to Kara Walker, they have rubbed our noses in issues that need to be tackled, made the political personal and the intimate entertaining. The BWAs […]

I never used to begin my weekly round of gallery visits with the words of Toyah Willcox, the actress and pop star, ringing in my ears, but recently I have found it useful. The art world has developed a passion for witchery, the occult, tarot, all forms of hocus-pocus. So it often helps to remember […]

New Contemporaries is an important show, one of the few genuinely helpful exhibitions in the art calendar. Started in 1949 and toured annually around Britain, it presents a selection of work by artists at the beginning of their careers, either still at art school or just graduated. Its value lies in the evidence it provides of […]