A (highly personal) ranking of the year’s best culture — Despite it often seeming like there was nothing else left to do, I found myself reluctant to watch, listen or read something new, or anything at all, for that matter. …

How the currency of recognition became its own worst enemy — The last few months have seen a number of (really rather good) pieces written proclaiming 2020 as the year the concept of celebrity finally met its end. Celebrities, the argument goes, were so elevated from everyday life that they failed to grasp the horror that was life in a pandemic…

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s windows into art history — The power of Degas’ studies of ballet dancers lies in the fact that they are off-duty, as it were. Seeing the figures, slumped over, moody and stone-faced, the very premise of ballet, and indeed, all art is exposed. The figures we watch moving across the stage, perfectly symmetrical, perfectly in…

In 1973, Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery unveiled the exhibition Towards a Common Language. In it, blank ‘works’ were installed above boxes of art materials with visitors asked to make the art themselves. Once finished, they could take their work or leave it on display. …

Seeing the news of Qasim Soleimani’s death doing the rounds on Twitter, my first reaction was relief. As a British-Iranian, his name wasn’t new to me and I’d heard about the horror he was unleashing across the Middle East. He was also doing this with a growing share of the…

How Olivia Laing’s Crudo plays with the middle-class liberal to question their privilege — Rarely is a novel so targeted to a specific audience as Olivia Laing’s fiction debut. Its cover uses a photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans, astro crusto to be precise. Those who recognise the image feel a certain pride at having done so, a testament to their intellectual and cultural proficiency. They…

I In the centre of a white platform lies a boy, still, limp. The only sign of life is to be found in his eyes, blinking, moving around the space, staring pleadingly at those of us in the room. This eerie reverie is shattered with Percy Sledge’s When a Man Loves…

Nestled away in a smaller gallery away from the bustle of the Royal Academy’s main space, a visitor to this year’s Summer Exhibiton would be able to see Patrick Dalton’s SELLFRIDGES, provided that they are able to spot it, given that it is surrounded by a number of larger, more…