Reviews

Crossing space and time with the Victorians

‘The breadth of the Atlantic, with all its waves, is as nothing’

29 Sep 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

A.S. Byatt on Morris and Fortuny follows all too familiar patterns

The novelist’s account of the two artists contributes little to discussion of their achievements

28 Sep 2016
Sunset near Villerville (c. 1876), Charles François Daubigny

How Daubigny inspired Impressionism

A modest exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery makes clear the big impact Daubigny had on modern art

25 Sep 2016

There will always be a place for art books – in fact, they’re essential

Phaidon is revisiting its pioneering artists’ monographs with a series of ‘Classics’ that reaffirms the importance of art publishing, and how it’s changed

16 Sep 2016

Surrealism, sex, and sound business sense – why Roland Penrose is a paradox

James King’s biography of the artist is illuminating, but tends to overstate the link between Penrose’s Surrealist art and his surreal personal life

13 Sep 2016
Mid-Lent (detail; 1925–26), Francis Picabia. Courtesy Kunsthaus Zürich; © ProLitteris 2016

Saint Augustine, Napoleon, the Funny Guy: the many faces of Francis Picabia

Picabia seemed to sense the edginess of every decade in which he lived – and reinvented his art to reflect it

12 Sep 2016
Cabin (2016), Rachel Whiteread, on Discovery Hill, Governors Island. Photo by Tim Schenck.

Rachel Whiteread takes to the hills on Governors Island

Bit by bit, the former military site in New York Harbor is being transformed into a cultural destination

12 Sep 2016
Installation view of Haruspex


The artist proving that beauty is on the inside – literally

Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva has used animal fat, intestines, and testicles in her work – not to shock, but to reveal the beauty in things that would normally disgust us

11 Sep 2016
Negative Publicity. Redacted image of a complex of buildings where a pilot identified as having flown rendition flights lives; from the series Negative Publicity: Artefacts of Extraordinary Rendition. © Edmund Clark; courtesy of Flowers Gallery London and New York

A frightening take on the War on Terror at the IWM

Edmund Clark’s eye-opening exhibition will make you think again about the impact and ethics of counter-terrorism and state control

It’s about time Winifred Knights got some attention

The Dulwich Picture Gallery finally spotlights this British modernist, whose work owes much to Renaissance traditions

1 Sep 2016
Installation view of Como un juego de niño (Like a child´s play) (21 July–2 October).

The Museo Espacio makes a splash in Aguascalientes

But Mexico’s new museum will need to demonstrate greater curatorial independence if it’s to flourish in the long-term

23 Aug 2016

Save our museums!

Public collections need eloquent and passionate defenders if they are to thrive in today’s tough climate

23 Aug 2016
Ritual dou vessel with phoenix-shaped handles (Qing dynasty, reign of Emperor Yongzheng: 1723–35), by the Imperial Workshop, Beijing. Photo: © National Palace Museum, Taipei

The very best of Chinese imperial art comes to San Francisco

It’s been 20 years since Taipei’s National Palace Museum loaned works to the US – now’s the chance to see their Chinese treasures

22 Aug 2016

Men’s fashion choices, from Yankee Doodle to Marlon Brando

LACMA takes a look at the last 300 years of menswear in ‘Reigning Men’, but fails to address some key issues clearly enough

19 Aug 2016

C.F.A. Voysey’s designs reveal his ‘puritanical love of simplicity’

Voysey’s designs were as pioneering as his architecture

13 Aug 2016

Is this exhibition Stanley Kubrick’s worst nightmare?

Kubrick took an ‘infinite amount of care’ over his films. The same can’t be said for this chaotic exhibition

12 Aug 2016

Quite mad and a little indecent’ – the complete works of Aubrey Beardsley

The first catalogue raisonné of Aubrey Beardsley’s works is a triumph – and a treat to pore through

9 Aug 2016

Has Jeremy Paxman made the most sensational Van Gogh documentary ever?

The presenter’s hunt for Van Gogh’s missing ear has been packaged like a thriller

7 Aug 2016

How photography and painting focused the Victorian mind

An exhibition at Tate Britain makes forceful claims for the imaginative use of memory in both art and photography

5 Aug 2016

Utopian dreams: Imagining what utopia might mean today

A year-long collaborative project at Somerset House celebrates the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s famous work

3 Aug 2016

Michel Houellebecq’s new exhibition is extremely terrible and utterly compelling

The writer has deployed the deadpan satirical streak that runs through his novels to defy the rules of contemporary art

3 Aug 2016

‘I buy! I buy! I can’t stop myself’: Artists as collectors at the National Gallery

Artist collectors, it emerges, are driven by a mix of motives from compulsion to emulation

2 Aug 2016

Fighting for the beauty of the British landscape

The former director-general of the National Trust has written a spirited defence of Britain’s rural areas

1 Aug 2016