Picasso’s Vollard Suite was just 31,300 sheets of repetitive old bull to our critic. Then he looked harder and was blown away by its deep impact
Archive
A genius in the flesh
Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist is a highly intelligent show — and it proves his skill as a scientist once and for all to a sceptical Waldemar Januszczak
A starman is born
When David Bowie breezed into Boscombe in the 1970s, nobody had seen anything like him. Least of all local lad Waldemar Januszczak
Somebody pass the zapper
The ICA’s TV show makes our critic doubt that its exhibitors even watch the box. Plus, we annouce our watercolour competition
Laughing in the jaws of his critics
Damien Hirst has pulled off a brilliant Tate show that proves he’s a master of design, as well as a man with the blackest sense of humour going
Time to self-reflect
By turns harrowing, grotesque and sly, Gillian Wearing’s videos reveal a pioneer whose own identity is always in the frame
Why Damien’s a small fish in Germany
There’s no British art at the hugely important Kassel Documenta, even if the public loves it. Our art critic knows who to blame
Nuclear proliferation
Turner didn’t merely wish to better his early idol, Claude, he wanted to blast his work out of the water, says our art critic
Why Damien’s a small fish in Germany
There’s no British art at the hugely important Kassel Documenta, even if the public loves it. Our art critic knows who to blame
It speaks to our inner geek
From his own bedroom clutter to a cross-dressing wrestler, Jeremy Deller turns his nerdy preoccupations into fine art