Antonio Presti's sculptures by Agnese Oliveri | 25 November 2020 La Materia Poteva non Esserci (Matter Could not Be), Pietro Consagra, 1986 Image credits: Atelier Sul Mare http://www.ateliersulmare.com/it/ ‘Utopia is not what is unrealisable, but it is what the system doesn’t want realised’. This suggestive sentence lies on the floor surrounded by walls filled with newspaper scrapes. These newspapers all write of the same man, in dozens of languages: Antonio Presti. Words and

by Angelica Jopling | 24 November 2020 I thought of you as Notre-Dame burned. I thought of how I peeled off my sticky leather gloves to feel my naked fingers between yours as we crossed that bridge over the Seine after dinner giddy and full. We stopped for a moment to watch at the glow of the city melt into the surface of midnight water. And rather than words came the thought of forever. We shall live here some day in a little apartment on the river with just enough bread and

How to move forward when the money runs out by Madeline DeFilippis | 23 November 2020 Karsten Moran for the New York Times The United States Justice Department recently announced a settlement with Purdue Pharma, the US-based company which produces the drug OxyContin. The settlement states that Purdue Pharma claims criminal responsibility for the marketing of its drug which has been linked to widespread over-prescribing and subsequently abuse and spread of what has become know

How the British Museum continues to center whiteness when describing prints of Black and white men. by Sara Blad | 21 November 2020 Mezzotint by Wallerant Vaillant. Described as a ‘[h]ead of a black man looking to right’. Photo: British Museum. Drawing by Lorenzo Lotto. Described as a ‘[h]ead of a man wearing a cap’. Photo: British Museum. Prompted by George Floyd’s murder in the United States and the global Black Lives Matter protests that followed, the British Museum decide

As we find ourselves in the midst of a second national shut-in, spare a thought for those for whom the winter months would be a challenge in ordinary circumstances, writes Jonathan Hart by Jonathan Hart | 20 November 2020 Illustration by Keturah Bate To paraphrase Robert Frost, while I have taken the road less travelled, the jury is out on whether that has made all the difference. I accepted from a fairly young age that my brain is wired differently to those of my peers. I am

'I am no longer an artist…I am a messenger…to those who want the war to go on for ever. Feeble, inarticulate, will be my message, but it will have a bitter truth, and may it burn their lousy souls' - An exploration into a war artists life of letters, painting and social commentary. by Kitty Atherton | 19 November 2020 Feeble, inarticulate, the commentary Nash imparted in a letter to his wife Margaret, in late 1917. The very words I would renounce when presented with the bleak

Tension throughout by Harry Carlson | 19 November 2020 Bruce Nauman Falls, Pratfalls and Sleights of Hand (Clean Version) 1993 Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg © ARS, NY and DACS, London 2020 “FEED ME, EAT ME, ANTHROPOL HELP ME, HURT ME, SOCIOLOGY FEED ME, HELP ME, EAT ME, HURT ME ” ANTHRO/SOCIO (RINDE SPINNING), 1992 Bruce Nauman’s presence at the Tate Modern is inescapable; climbing the stairs to the ground floor of the building, fellow staff writer, Kitty and I are accosted by the ar

The lives of Susan Sontag, Bernard Buffet and Claude Lanzmann Aniela Rybak | 15 June 2020 During the first three weeks of Warsaw’s lockdown (two of which I spent alone in quarantine), I read three different biographies that made me reflect on the genre in general, beyond just the lives of the three individuals. Now, when we may feel that our lives have been put on pause, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to read about somebody else’s experiences. Virginia Woolf, in

Building a Firsthand Opinion of the Fashion Jungle Anonymous | 17th July 2020 Illustration by Rebecca Marks Much ink has been spilled to try and convey the reality of the fashion industry, its dreamlike quality and the many sharks that swim its waters. Its status as one of the most controversial industries, the trigger of wide mental health imbalance and ecological disaster as well as its aura of glamour, of desire and beauty, allow it to remain the object of our questions an

Or alternatively, a response to defacing statues by Grace Han | 18th June 2020 Illustration by Grace Han Since I’ve read Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, I’ve thought about this phrase often: “The tyranny of objects.” In Dick’s dystopian world, police cop Deckard must wipe out rogue androids to prevent their uprising. The logic follows that a rebellious android is a dangerous android, and therefore must be “retired” before they kill real humans. “The ty