Hope springs eternal, so the poet sings, or dum spiro spero, as that wise and prudent old bird, King Charles I, would put it, and he should

404 Not Found

know. But then again, true as truth may be, I have to say there are times, and these not the least of them, when it

---

nginx/1.21.1 would nginx/1.21.1 seem to have shrunk to the […]

Rihanna is in

404 Not Found

trouble again. This time she has offended ‘the Hindu community’ by wearing a pendant featuring the

---

nginx/1.21.1 elephant god Ganesha, a fashion choice denounced on Instagram as ‘mad disrespectful’. The Barbadian singer should have known better. She has previous in the fashion department, having already upset the Chinese community by dressing up in ancient Chinese costume for a […]

Across the last 30 years the narrative of official Contemporary Art has unfurled

---

nginx/1.21.1 like a Chinese scroll. We can follow

404 Not Found

how, from around 1990, those commercial techniques pioneered to manufacture reputations by Charles nginx/1.21.1 Saatchi were adopted as a template by other speculators eager to cash in. This was the start of a racket which turned the art market into […]

404 Not

404 Not Found

Found

---

nginx/1.21.1 404 Not Found nginx/1.21.1

404 Not Found 404

---

nginx/1.21.1 Not

404 Not Found

Found nginx/1.21.1

Bristol University is building a new library. The very idea is enough to send shivers down the spine: any British institution that decides to build something new is almost certain to add to the accumulated ugliness of the

404 Not Found

world. And so it is in this case.

---

nginx/1.21.1 The design that the University has accepted combines banality with monstrosity: a combination that, […]

Laura Gascoigne Thank God for books.

404 Not Found

When shut off from real life, you can see it reflected in novels. But how accurate is the reflection? Does the mirror distort? In month ten of the no-longer-new-abnormal I sat down with a stack of novels about artists. Some I’d read before, others were new, chief among them

---

nginx/1.21.1 the 404 Not Found fons […]

David Lee March/April 2021 Nothing much happened last year in the

---

nginx/1.21.1 visual arts. The usual suspects promoted themselves with yards of trivia, usually about the NHS, but nothing serious was made except by those conventional sorts who go quietly about their business. National galleries tried to fill the gap by selling us ‘virtual’ and ‘digital’ ‘experiences’

404 Not Found

by the dozen, but […]

Dick French A curious little book has just come out called The Death

---

nginx/1.21.1 of Francis Bacon. The author, Max Porter, won the International Dylan Thomas Prize some time ago. Whenever awards are

404 Not Found

deployed I always think of Charlotte Rampling who, in her film The Swimming Pool, remarked: “Awards are like haemorrhoids, sooner or later every arsehole gets one.” It’s not […]

HOME ALONE Well here we still are – or perhaps not by the time you read this: goodness me, let’s hope

404 Not Found

so – but I do rather worry about how you’re all bearing up in these strange and straitened times. Social distancing is one thing, but this Social

---

nginx/1.21.1 Hibernation altogether something else: and, with no release in prospect, it does […]