Digby Warde-Aldam is a freelance writer based in Paris.

Art of the blue – the chilly iconoclasm of Rayyane Tabet

The Lebanese artist’s new installation cleverly undermines the utopian ambitions of the architecture that surrounds it

16 Feb 2024

Exposing the colonial past – an interview with Sammy Baloji

Taking photographs as a starting point, the artist unearths the hidden connections between European colonialism and modern-day Africa

2 Jan 2024

Nicolas de Staël’s art was unpredictable to the end

This long overdue retrospective shows that there was very little Nicolas de Staël coudn’t do as a painter

23 Nov 2023

Tourist for a day – the spectacular Paris park that needs a helping hand

The parc des Buttes-Chaumont was meant to be a ’Tuileries of the people’, but the crowning glory of Haussman’s Paris has fallen on hard times

15 Sep 2023

Ragnar Kjartansson’s guide to Reykjavik

The performance artist explains why he loves being from Iceland and takes us on a tour of public sculpture in his hometown

8 Jun 2023
Edward Brezinski and friends

Take a walk on the obscure side of 1980s New York

This curious film about the painter Edward Brezinski suggests that not all forgotten artists are candidates for rehabilitation

22 Feb 2023
Inside Koen Vanmechelen’s LABIOMISTA in Genk, Belgium

The madcap menagerie of Koen Vanmechelen

With his ambitious new public project in Genk, the Belgian artist fuses art, activism and animal husbandry

21 Jan 2019
Installation view of ‘Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts’ at MoMA PS1, New York, 2018.

The endless inventions of Bruce Nauman

Drawing, video, sculpture and performance – no medium is out of bounds for the titan of American art

4 Jan 2019
Installation view of ‘Sarah Lucas: Au Naturel’ at the New Museum, New York, 2018.

The shock value of Sarah Lucas still hasn’t worn off

Lucas made her name as one of the more provocative YBAs. Two decades later, her work continues to surprise

22 Nov 2018
Untitled (Pink Torso) (1995), Rachel Whiteread. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian. © Rachel Whiteread. Photo: © Tate (Seraphina Neville and Marke Heathcote)

Rachel Whiteread’s conspicuous absences

The artist’s ongoing record of what was not there becomes more thought-provoking as time passes

18 Sep 2017
Still Life with Seashell on Black Marble (1940), Henri Matisse. Photo © Archives H. Matisse © Succession H. Matisse/DACS 2017

A nosey parker’s paradise in London

Pore over Matisse’s prized possessions and get a glimpse into Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s home at these fascinating exhibitions

16 Aug 2017
Boxkampf fur die direkte Demokratie at documenta V (1972), Joseph Beuys. © Hans Albrecht Lusznat

Joseph Beuys’s boxing career

Waddington Custot celebrates Beuys’s boxing skills, while a mysterious British artist steals the show at Bagshawe Fine Art

20 Jul 2017
The Parthenon of Books (2017), Marta Minujín. Friedrichsplatz, Kassel, Documenta 14. Photo: Roman März

What has Kassel’s Documenta learned from Athens?

The Kassel leg of Documenta 14 has just opened, but will it fare batter than its much-criticised Athens counterpart?

19 Jun 2017
Scalata al di la dei terreni cromatici / Escalade Beyond Chromatic Lands (2016–17), Sheila Hicks. Photo: Italo Rondinella, courtesy La Biennale di Venezia

How did ‘Viva Arte Viva’ go so wrong?

Wasn’t this year’s Venice Biennale exhibition supposed to do away with grand curatorial conceits?

19 May 2017

Fifty years of The Velvet Underground

It tanked in 1967, but the band’s debut album, produced by Andy Warhol, was still the best pop cultural achievement of its decade

4 May 2017
'Mementos. Artists Souvenirs, Artefacts and other Curiosities' (2017), Art Brussels.

Highlights of Art Brussels

Like the city itself, the strength of this fair is in its variety

23 Apr 2017
The Visitation (detail; 1518–19), Sebastiano del Piombo. © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Hervé Lewandowski

Which London shows are worth going indoors for?

Spring is here and the sun is out, so choose your exhibitions wisely…

11 Apr 2017
Exhausted renegade elephant, Woodland, Washington, June 1979, by Joel Sternfeld. © Joel Sternfeld. Image courtesy Beetles+Huxley and Luhring Augustine

The elephant in the road

Go and see Joel Sternfeld’s strange and beautiful photographs of the USA at Beetles+Huxley while you still can

10 Feb 2017
Installation view of 'John Baldessari: Miró and Life in General' at Marian Goodman Gallery, London. © John Baldessari. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris & London. Photo: Thierry Bal

John Baldessari’s jumble sale style, and the wonders of Tooting Broadway

You can stumble across good art in the strangest places…

26 Jan 2017
Zaha Hadid, Installation view, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London (8 December 2016–12 February 2017) © Zaha Hadid Foundation. Image © 2016 Hugo Glendinning

Legends in London: Zaha Hadid and Robert Rauschenberg

A look around some of London’s most talked-about winter exhibitions

23 Dec 2016
Orange Body (1969), Robert Raschenberg. © DACS

Spectacular Rauschenbergs and surprisingly good Gavin Turks

There’s an absolutely extraordinary exhibition of Robert Rauschenberg’s art in London right now – and it’s not at the Tate. Plus more London art highlights

9 Dec 2016
Dog (c. 1954–60), Keith Cunningham

Keith Cunningham: the artist who walked away from fame

He was ranked alongside Auerbach and Kossoff: so why did Cunningham stop painting just as his career was taking off?

24 Oct 2016
Anthea Hamilton's installation at the 'Turner Prize 2016', Tate Britain. Courtesy Joe Humphrys © Tate Photography

Is it time for the Turner Prize to break out of the Tate?

It’s a mixed bag this year, with Anthea Hamilton coming out on top. But whatever you make of the work, Tate is no longer the place to show it

28 Sep 2016
Author Stephen Bayley decided to baptise his book 'Death Drive' with a night of performance art in which guests were invited to destroy a beaten up old Saab...

Smashing stuff…London’s art world wakes up with a bang

Kicking off the London art season by kicking in an old Saab (for art’s sake)

27 Sep 2016