The Tate’s vast extension is high on good intentions, but low on excitement. It’s all a bit too polite
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Worlds of possibility
Abstraction is back, and female artists are in the vanguard of the revival
Visions of paradise
Maria Merian’s 17th-century butterfly pictures are both stunning natural history and proof of a deep spirituality
Tate’s bad impression
We don’t need a £260m pyramid, says our art critic. We need a creative force like the Impressionists to break the grip of the art establishment
Can you buy culture?
While Abu Dhabi awaits a Louvre, the world’s best street artists are being paid to decorate a mall in Dubai. Have they sold their souls?
A strange body of work
Maria Lassnig’s self-exposure packs a punch
Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons: The glamour twins
The biggest art celebrity in the world is showing in a grubby corner of London — at the gallery of the guy who comes in at No 2. They tell us why
Bark with Bite
George Shaw reboots the Old Masters at the National Gallery
Shock to the system
Mona Hatoum’s mysterious installations are suffused with the menacing world in which she grew up
Divine Inspiration
Lucid, engrossing and delightful, Sicily: Culture and Conquest is great art aimed at modern Europe