Comment

Art marketcomment

The new auction calendar: everything, everywhere, at every opportunity

All change as the final auction season of 2024 goes into full swing

Technologycomment

Despite the real (and artificial) fears of many, AI is not the enemy of the art world

Concerns about access, expertise and data sourcing have overshadowed the enormous power and potential that AI image generators offer

Why it's time for museums to take risks—or risk obsolescence

Jorrit Britschgi, executive director of the Rubin Museum of Art, on ‘embracing non-attachment and impermanence’

Why writing off the Mona Lisa would serve the Louvre better than worshipping it

The Paris museum should forget about the hugely costly move of the Leonardo painting and focus instead on the myriad other masterpieces in its collection

Ready for the art-world reckoning?

The Readying the Museum group has created a blueprint to help institutions address inequity within their own walls—and to make the public, rather than trustees, their key priority

Sasha Skochilenko: I just happened to be the winner of the ‘Hunger Games’

The Russian artist, who was freed in a prison swap, on life under President Putin and spending more than two years in prison for an art intervention opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Welcome to the slow museum, where less is more

In an effort to deepen existing programming and community engagement, some institutions are choosing to stage fewer exhibitions

'Building your way to sustainability is a bad idea, no matter how green your new building is'

Renovations need to win out over new extensions, says sustainability professor Martin Müller, and museums need to 'get back to basics'

Being ‘discovered’ late in life can be maddening—but it can have advantages

The Buffalo AKG Art Museum just opened a Stanley Whitney retrospective—the 77-year-old artist's first museum survey

Art marketcomment

It’s time to end the predatory practices of 'sleeper hunters'

Sleeper hunter dealers must recognise they have an asymmetrical relationship to vulnerable people pressured by circumstance to sell off their treasured heirlooms

Is the Royal Academy's 'Entangled Pasts' exhibition radical? Yes—for the Royal Academy

The London institution may have woken up to its responsibility of presenting its role in Britain’s imperial past. But please don't go back to sleep...

The dawn of the entrepreneurial museum

With traditional philanthropic models on the wane, US institutions like the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and the Andy Warhol Museum are engaging in unconventional partnerships and launching spin-off businesses

A string of new exhibitions shows that textile art is finally being taken seriously

The historical association of textiles with gender, sexuality and identity norms make them ripe for subversion and reimagining

The Parthenon Marbles and the myth of the slippery slope

There are some very spurious arguments coming from those resisting the return of the marbles to Greece

Alexander Herman
Museumscomment

How museum guides are being enlisted in the US culture wars

Docents—voluntary educators who are frequently white, of retirement age and middle class—embody the tensions between the status quo and change in US museums

Time for the UK to adopt US-style rules on holding artists' funds

Primary-market sale proceeds should be held on trust so artists are never left out of pocket by a gallery's insolvency, writes IP and art lawyer Jon Sharples

'Italy is an alcoholic in denial over Venice'

By 2100 the water-level will ring rise one metre, and yet it aims to block UNESCO in-danger listing

Does the search for US museum leaders lack transparency?

Julia Halperin examines the often mysterious recruitment procedure for new museum directors in the US, which has come under increased scrutiny

'Never trustee an MP: why politicians should stay off boards of cultural institutions'

The "arm's length" principle, which frowns on political meddling in museums, is being eroded by policy hawks, writes artist and activist Bob and Roberta Smith

Ignore the nay-sayers: great things can happen when art forms collide

'It turns out that dancing about architecture—or filming about music—can produce great art'

'Forget the Brexit blues: for art, London is still where it’s at'

There are plenty of encouraging dynamics in the city this summer

Art worldcomment

'We need to talk about class in the art world'

A recent list of young art "disruptors" published by a UK newspaper underlines the insidious dynamics of privilege which continue to define our industry

Could we be on the verge of another art market crash?

With auction sales faltering and a respected commercial gallery going into administration, Ben Lewis sees echoes of the slump of 2008

Labour’s education revolution will put the arts and culture centre stage

The UK's shadow culture minister sets out the Labour party's plan for arts and culture if they win the next election

Lucy Powell. UK Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

At last, Venice’s authorities admit the risk from sea-level rise

At a conference organised by the new Venice Sustainability Foundation in June, major public figures agreed for the first time that sea-level rise is the main problem facing the city now

AI might now be powerful enough to be ‘using’ artists

It is time to think about the extent to which technology itself has power over us, independent of people in tech companies

'As politicians look away, we need artists like Steve McQueen more than ever'

The British artist invited dozens of MPs to view his film about Grenfell Tower at London's Serpentine Galleries, but most only showed up after subsequent guilt-tripping