Political Art

Political Artinterview

Artist who threatened to blow up art to save Julian Assange reflects on ‘extreme stress’ of the experience

Andrei Molodkin had threatened to destroy unidentified works by artists including Pablo Picasso if the WikiLeaks founder died in jail, but now they are to be set free

Political Artinterview

Could 16 artworks save Julian Assange's life?

The Russian artist Andrei Molodkin says he will destroy works by Jake Chapman, Sarah Lucas, Picasso and Rembrandt if the Wikileaks founder dies in jail

Booksreview

Graphic memoir charts an ominous journey from Fidel Castro’s Cuba to Donald Trump’s America

Cuban American artist Edel Rodriguez, labelled a “worm” for fleeing Cold War Cuba in 1980, tells story of his progress from impoverished boyhood to creating alarming covers for Time magazine

Political art stays peripheral at Art Basel in Miami Beach

Fair’s stands largely remain neutral despite multiple hot-topic issues in the world today

Art history meets Lego in two of Ai Weiwei’s latest works

Chinese artist recreates two famous historic paintings using the hundreds of thousands of Lego bricks

Censored? London premiere of Andres Serrano’s Capitol attack film pulled for being 'pro-Trump'

US artist says that Prince Charles Cinema has “misinterpreted” his work

Art and activist body a/political to open London space with exhibition by Russian artist facing trial over sex video

Pyotr Pavlensky has been ordered to stand trial in France over leaked sex videos that brought down a close ally of President Emmanuel Macron

In one of UK’s largest art commissioning programmes, 22 artists receive £2.5m to explore the impact of war

Michael Rakowitz and Heather Phillipson among those selected to create new works through Imperial War Museums' 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund

Art fairsreview

Uyghurs, mass incarceration and Ukraine before the invasion: three political presentations to see at Photo London

Strong messages are present in a number of booths at this year's edition of the UK's biggest photography fair

Archival discovery prompts exploration of 1980s movement to support Central American artists at time of political upheaval

A dozen boxes of materials found in the Museum of Modern Art’s library served as the impetus for a new exhibition on the legacy of the Artists Call group at Tufts University Art Galleries

Podcastspodcast

Guerrilla Girls: corrupt museum boards, the female nude and NFTs

Plus, Glasgow International festival and Cézanne at MoMA

Hosted by Ben Luke and Aimee Dawson. with guest speaker Louisa Buck. Produced by Julia Michalska, David Clack and Henrietta Bentall
Sponsored byChristie's
Podcastspodcast

The fight against Putin: artists on the frontline

Plus, India reconstructs its history and Navid Nuur on Walter de Maria

‘Britain’s most important political artist’ Peter Kennard joins London gallery

Richard Saltoun exhibition will include artist’s earliest works incorporating newspaper images

Can artists change the world? MoMA show explores political art from the early 20th-century

The works on paper from the Merrill C. Berman Collection include designs for Communist posters and salad oil advertisements

Chinanews

Consulates provide new safe haven for political art in China

Artists tackling contentious issues have found an unlikely home in the form of foreign diplomatic services such as the Goethe-Institut and consular residences

Prizesnews

Exiled Kurdish artist—who smuggled paintings from her Turkish jail cell—wins inaugural Carol Rama Award

Zehra Doğan was imprisoned for nearly three years under terrorism charges for work of art shared on Twitter

Politicscomment

Philip Guston drew Richard Nixon's face as a hairy scrotum and phallus—what would he make of President Trump?

The physiognomy of deviousness, greed, ruthless opportunism, risible self-importance and gobsmacking albeit garden variety stupidity provides artists of Guston’s bent and calibre with a virtually bottomless well of imagery

Influential political cartoonist Steve Bell dropped by the Guardian newspaper after 40 years

Biting satirist looks to art history for some of his caricatures, such as a recent sketch of Boris Johnson as Mona Lisa

Political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe tells the story of his life and work in new book

For more than 60 years the rapier-sharp pen has wounded his enemies deeply and he has met all the great and the good of our day

Peter Kennard’s artistic political commentaries cloy when they are presented altogether as they are in this book

The artist’s unremitting commitment to the Left may be commendable, but has limited his development as an artist

As crisis deepens, activists stage pro-democracy exhibition in Hong Kong

Show at WMA Space tells the “story of HongKongers” through protest ephemera

Forged in war, revolution and turmoil, works head for Les Rencontres d’Arles

The annual photography festival assembles works that open up doors closed by political turbulence

Tate Modern chronicles the rise of Black Power in post-war America

Soul of a Nation includes around 150 works looking at the realities of the African American experience

Rebellion show marks 1967 Detroit riot

Organised by the Detroit Institute of Arts, it is one of many commemorative events occurring throughout the city

Saudi Arabian artist Gharem’s first US solo show escapes shadow of 9/11

Political and poignant, Gharem's art reflects on one of the defining moments of the 21st century

Copyrightarchive

The verdict that flies in the face of art history: Luc Tuymans guilty of copyright infringement

A Belgian court recently found Tuymans guilty, a ruling that ignores appropriation’s vital role in art over the centuries and has worrying implications for the future

Artists confront violence across the Middle East in new exhibition opening in Amsterdam

“Fight History” is the second in the "Crisis of History" series on at the Tolhuistuin

Interview with Mike Nelson: On the biennale, Turkey, and being “not quite sure what installation is…”

His work at the Venice Biennale has meant rebuilding an installation inside a rebuilt caravanserai within the British Pavilion

Interview with Jonathan Meese: "I am the samurai of art”

The German artist explains why he puts aggression and provocation centre stage—along with his mum

Interview with Shirin Neshat: “For Iranian artists, being silent is like taking the side of the demon”

As her debut movie, “Women Without Men”, screens in Basel, the artist explains that cinema is closer to her people