Recent articles

Dear Tate Modern, First, and most important, happy birthday! Pop the corks and toot the horns! A quarter century is an exciting age. Lots ahead, and lots behind. I will, of course, be giving you advice on how to make your golden anniversary even more successful than your silver, but before that savagery begins let’s […]

There are two Turners. One of them is public property, a national treasure whose face we put on our banknotes and whose ship paintings we habitually place at the top of our lists of favourite pictures. He is the Turner whose anniversaries we celebrate officially and whose quarter millennial appearance in our midst we are […]

Did you know that Britain and Poland are celebrating an intense cultural exchange? That between now and November more than 100 events are taking place across both nations as we touch fingers above the great European divide, like God and Adam on the Sistine ceiling? There’s even a logo for the initiative: a sweet rectangle […]

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 […]