Apollo's wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art and museum stories. Got a story for Rakewell? Email rakewell@apollomag.com. Follow @Rakewelltweets.

Handbags at dawn! Plans to install a statue of Margaret Thatcher have been quashed!

Mrs Thatcher’s missing handbag and the case of the disappearing duck

Rakewell ponders two statues in London that have come in for criticism because they are missing vital accessories

13 Apr 2016

The Rake’s progress: last week in gossip

David Shrigley’s foam hands, Olafur Eliasson’s shaky economics and a chance to buy Andy Warhol’s studio

12 Apr 2016

Pencils, irons and used underwear: the world’s wackiest museums

Whatever your thing, says Rakewell, there’s a museum for you out there somewhere

8 Apr 2016
Zac Goldsmith isn't the only mayoral candidate to have been left floundering this week by his ignorance of the city’s museums

The museum pratfalls of London’s mayoral candidates (yep, Zac AND Sadiq)

Neither Zac Goldsmith nor Sadiq Khan seem to know a thing about the capital’s museums

5 Apr 2016

The Rake’s progress: last week in gossip

Introducing Rakewell, Apollo’s wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art…

4 Apr 2016

How Brazilian fowl play has left a Dutch artist spitting feathers

Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman claims that Brazilian protesters have plagiarised his inflatable rubber duck.

2 Apr 2016
Narcissism helps to sell art? Explains why contemporary artists love mirrors so much

Top artists are narcissists. It’s official (sort of)

An academic paper claims you can tell an artist’s vanity by the size of their signature. Well, maybe.

30 Mar 2016

Dr Who isn’t the only art-historical lookalike out there – here are four more of the best

Rakewell picks out his favourite lookalikes in historical paintings, from David Cameron to Sylvester Stallone

28 Mar 2016

When politicians paint over their mistakes

Iain Duncan Smith once said that oil painting was like politics – because you could easily paint over your mistakes. Rakewell picks out a few politicians who have done just that

22 Mar 2016

The Rake’s progress: last week in gossip

Why has Arsène Wenger slipped in to artspeak? Plus a dog that can paint and more yet more art pouting from Kanye West

20 Mar 2016

The pop art that should never have reached the recording studio

From Joseph Beuys to Dinos Chapman, the artists who have turned to music but should never have hit the studio

18 Mar 2016

UNESCO gears up for a pizza party

The Neapolitan dough boys have applied for protected status for pizza through UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage scheme

17 Mar 2016
I hate Frieze. It’s a tent. In a park. That sells art. Not a cultural phenomenon

The Rake’s progress: last week in gossip

The Steve Lazarides effect, at home with Elton John and his collection, and the Museum of Broken Relationships heads to LA

13 Mar 2016

When restoration goes wrong. Very wrong.

The only near comparable disaster that sprung to mind was Saddam Hussein’s reconstruction of Babylon

11 Mar 2016

Creative Scotland’s journey to the undertaker

Introducing Rakewell, Apollo’s wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art…

10 Mar 2016

Sir Anish Kapoor toys with the dark arts

Introducing Rakewell, Apollo’s wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art…

7 Mar 2016
Thomas Heatherwick himself turned up wearing a jacket embroidered with leaves and foliage

The Rake’s progress: last week in gossip

Introducing Rakewell, Apollo’s wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art…

6 Mar 2016

Do we need a museum dedicated to the Olsen twins? Er, no.

A Kickstarter campaign to launch an Olsen twins museum has Rakewell reaching for his absinthe bottle

4 Mar 2016
It makes perfect sense for Iggy Pop to be the subject of a life class...his body has witnessed much and should be documented

A lust for life drawing (or, Iggy Pop takes his clothes off, again)

Iggy Pop has been getting his kit off (again), in the name of art

2 Mar 2016
I just think Lucian Freud makes everyone look like they're made of cheese

The Rake’s progress: last week in gossip

Zaha Hadid’s favourite rapper, art in space, and why Prince Philip doesn’t rate Lucian Freud

1 Mar 2016

A contested cockerel and other controversies

Rakewell reflects on how the public has started taking restitution into its own hands

26 Feb 2016

The Met’s new logo and a truly pretentious party

The Met’s rebranding exercise has not gone well, Kanye West needs $1 billion, and London’s art world has been partying in the name of pretentiousness

21 Feb 2016

A history of Kanye Western art

Kanye West thinks he’s Picasso or Michelangelo – but Rakewell is not so sure

17 Feb 2016

The museum of Cornish pasties and a peek inside Vincent’s bedroom

The Cornish pasty museum and now booking: Van Gogh’s bedroom on Airbnb

14 Feb 2016