After years of dreary line-ups, 2009’s prize is, in an unusually subtle way, a cracker
Archive
Maharaja at the V&A
Trying to make sense of the rich Indian princes only reveals the depths of their avarice
Pop Life opens at the Tate Modern
Apparently, Pop Life at Tate Modern was going to be called Sold Out. But the curators grew nervous. Which is unfortunate, because, to my ears, Sold Out is not only a punchier title for the show, but also a more appropriate one. Rarely have I seen this many artworks crammed into a single display, piled […]
Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy
A cannon firing Napoleonic wax, a pregnancy sculpture called Mother as Mountain and the biggest penis in the world
Moctezuma at the British Museum
It’s like being invited to the Playboy mansion to meet Hugh Hefner and getting a Harvard course on the history of the nude One way to understand the fine series of exhibitions about great rulers that the British Museum has been staging for us — The First Emperor, Hadrian, Nebuchadnezzar, Shah Abbas and now Moctezuma […]
Hot lips from Amsterdam
The National Gallery is displaying Ed Kienholz’s re-creation of a red-light district — a scandal or a liberating move? To prepare myself properly for the new exhibition at the National Gallery, I looked up the origins of the term “red-light district”. It turns out, there are two possible sources. One is ancient China, where red […]
Keith Tyson’s new show open until November
Turner Prize winner mixes art and science in the East End’s Parasol unit while Thomas Heatherwick shows Extrusions
Vincent van Gogh: The Full Story
A team of scholars has taken 15 years to put together complete collection of the artist’s letters, with show at Royal Academy
Zhang Huan pig installation in St James’s
As I approached the White Cube gallery in posh St James’s, I could hear a curious snuffling and snorting emanating from the building. Who was in there? Brian Sewell? Pete Doherty? It turned out to be neither of them, but a pair of charmingly spotted pigs given temporary shelter in the gallery by the pushy […]
My Name is Charles Saatchi and I am an Artoholic: Everything You Need to Know About Art, Ads, Life, God and Other Mysteries — and Weren’t Afraid to Ask by Charles Saatchi
It took me 20 minutes to read Charles Saatchi’s book. And that included a couple of minutes dealing with the title, which caused me to squirm and gurn unpleasantly as I worked my way down it. What fearful pretension. What wishful thinking. What tosh. Like one of those miniature bottles of perfume that arrive on […]
