The unconventional wisdom of Eileen Agar
The British Surrealist’s colourful account of a long and eventful career is back in print, and her utter dedication to her work couldn’t be clearer
‘This bird’s a doofus’ – the unlikely charms of a featherbrained friend
When Jonathan Lethem picked up an innocuous old painting of a cormorant for $50, he didn’t know it would become a companion for life
Elizabeth Bennet gets a strange new lease of life
Visitors to Jane Austen’s House will soon be able to ‘meet’ the popular Pride and Prejudice character, but will her avatar make a good first impression?
Glenn Lowry to step down as MoMA director after 30 years
The museum’s longest serving director is leaving in 2025; plus the artist Rebecca Horn has died at the age of 80, and the Italian culture minister has resigned after hiring his lover as an advisor
Will the Glasgow School of Art ever be rebuilt?
Six years after the devastating fire, Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s masterpiece is no closer to being restored. What can possibly explain the delay?
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Lina Iris Viktor strikes gold at the Soane Museum
The artist has made a series of works that stand up to the space – and are attention-grabbing in their own right
Piecing together ancient Rome, one fragment at a time
At the new museum of the Forma Urbis, slabs of the famous map of the city now lie literally beneath visitors’ feet
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In the studio with… Eduardo Terrazas
The Mexican artist, known for his woven works that borrow from folk-art traditions, listens to Bach and Rosalía while working in his studio in Colonia Roma, Mexico City
In the studio with… Joy Labinjo
The artist observes a long working day in her studio in Harringay, but enjoys listening to bashment, riding her Peloton and thumbing through books by Kerry James Marshall
September 2024
• Bringing Pompeii back to life
• The surreal films of Jan Švankmajer
• The cat ladies of contemporary art
Plus:
Apollo celebrates 40 artists, patrons, thinkers and business-people blurring the line between art and craft; the Italian museum memorialising an unsolved plane crash; reviews of Paula Modersohn-Becker in New York, Elisabeth Frink’s menagerie, and Eileen Agar’s memoir of an unconventional life – and Jonathan Lethem remembers meeting a feather-brained friend in Maine
Behind the mask – the meaning of masquerade in West Africa
Kevin Dumouchelle of the National Museum of African Art explains what a fearsome 19th-century ceremonial mask meant to its makers in Côte d’Ivoire
Paula Modersohn-Becker’s quest to become her own person
The German painter died tragically young, but in the course of her short life she became the artist she always wanted to be
Parcours des Mondes offers a world of opportunity
The Paris event celebrating art from around the world returns this autumn with a new focus on modern and contemporary work
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Acquisitions of the month: August 2024
A Madonna of the Cherries by Quentin Metsys and a very rare sketchbook by Caspar David Friedrich are among the most important works to have entered public collections in the last month
Anna Sorokin puts her best foot forward
Undeterred by a security tag on her ankle, the convicted con artist is taking to the small screen for Dancing with the Stars
Tamsin Wimhurst: the woman who saves the extraordinary homes of ordinary people
The social historian who bought the David Parr House in Cambridge finds herself drawn to fantastical interiors in unexpected settings
The surreal films of Jan Švankmajer
When it comes to conjuring the uncanny atmosphere and impossible logic of dreams, the Czech film-maker has few equals
The endless mystique of Franz Kafka
The term ‘Kafkaesque’ is in constant use and misuse, but, a century on from his death, are we any closer to understanding the man himself?
The joyous art of fancy Victorian ices
Modern creations may offer a riot of flavours but in form they’re no match for the fantastical shapes of the past
Jeremy Frey weaves new worlds
The seventh-generation basketry artist is bringing new dynamism to an ancient craft
On the road with Ed Ruscha
The artist laureate of Los Angeles also draws on the everyday junk of Southern California to embellish the myth of a city nestled between the ocean and the desert
Hans/Jean Arp & Sophie Taeuber-Arp
These versatile makers – one of the most influential couples of the 20th-century art world – are the subject of a major retrospective in Brussels
We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art
The importance of colour to Mesoamerican art and society is the subject of this show, which includes ancient objects as well as work by contemporary Indigenous colourists
Glenn Ligon: All Over the Place
The American artist brings word art to the Fitzwilliam in a sprawling retrospective that makes creative use of the museum’s permanent collection
The Reflected Self: Portrait Miniatures, 1540–1850
Compton Verney celebrates what was once one of the most popular art forms in Britain, proving that size really doesn’t matter