How to be a populist in the art world
A recent conference on populism exposed the extent to which the art world talks around actually existing people
When art took on fascism (and lost)
Abstract activist concerns have overshadowed aesthetic production
The ends of Pan-Africanism
An exhibition devoted to Pan-Africanism avoids important political and aesthetic questions
Knowingly crass and conflicted
This American culture is hegemonic because even to steal from it is to propel it
Zurbarán on Freud’s couch
An acclaimed new exhibition is full of overwrought symbolism and compositional failures
Spectres of folk
Can the gallery embrace unofficial culture?
Soft competition
There are participation prizes to everyone at the Venice Biennale
Beauty from the ruins of war
Painting gave artists and their viewers a temporary way out of the grim wartime reality
Seeing colour
Donald Locke, Resistant Forms at Camden Art Centre
Art: my part in its downfall
Pierre d’Alancaisez was part of the
contemporary art world’s inner circle until
he saw the error of his ways
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Why they hated Ann Widdecombe
Fair-minded people could agree or disagree with her opinions. Left-wing bigots hated her for not abandoning them
Amnesty irrational
Gender identity ideologues cannot get away with baseless smears any more
The case against recognising Somaliland
The Somaliland lobby is being dangerously naive about the realities of the region
Who pays for Manchesterism?
Burnham spent nine years extracting money from Westminster, now he’ll be reaching directly into taxpayers’ pockets
The goading life
How the transgressive media of the 1990s influenced, and was eaten by, online culture
Stop saying sectarianism
Britain’s emerging politics are not really sectarian at all, but the result of neo-communal fragmentation
Tame Impala fails to impress
unconquered by a
taste of Crusader food
The EU must change course on energy
European industry is finally standing up to irrational EU climate policies
Baddiel shoots, he doesn’t score
If you want to understand English football, you will get better answers knocking on doors in Burnley than Hampstead
Profile: Alec Douglas-Home
The quintessential Tory grandee who
was the last of his kind: a politician
motivated by service to his country
Has the arts sector learned nothing?
Tripling down on identity politics and censoriousness would be fatal
The injustice of early releases
The government is failing victims for the sake of political convenience
Ed Miliband is a bad environmentalist
He has put virtue signalling before effectiveness
Sometimes look on the bright side of life
We should welcome the more culturally affirmative moments of pessimistic and condemnatory commentators
Why 1776 matters to modern Britain
The American founding is a case study in peaceful regime change
Where hatreds meet
Antisemitism and misogyny have a lot in common