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Observations: The fabulous 'theatre without a director'

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:51 +0100

As an actor I have toured the world, but always with the hard shell of a play around me. Five years ago I was invited to travel to the Galapagos with my childhood acquaintance, the artist Dorothy Cross. We share zoologist brothers; they are friends and we were treading in their dream world, our strange symmetry!

Alice Jones' Arts Diary: Silicon pigs? Stags stuffed with bats? It's taxidermy, but not as we know it...

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:42 +0100

Polly Morgan, aka the artworld's most famous taxidermist, has set her sights on larger prey following a safari holiday in the Serengeti.

David Lister: Screening live performances is of value but it's no substitute for the real thing

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:04 +0100

It doesn't happen often, but how I love it when it does. Occasionally, just occasionally, a leading mover and shaker in the arts utters a heresy.

Blank canvas: London gallery unveils 'invisible' art exhibition

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

In a move certain to leave art traditionalists apoplectic with rage, one of the country's leading galleries is to charge £8 for entry to a summer exhibition of works which cannot be seen.

'Art...? Sorry, but I just can't see it' - Hayward Gallery to show exhibition of invisible work

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:48:59 +0100

It is fair to say that a good proportion of the British public fail to see the appeal of modern art.

Banksy's 'Parachuting Rat' accidentally ruined by Australian builder

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:09:49 +0100

A work by guerrilla artist Banksy has been accidentally ruined by a Australian builder after he drilled through it to put in a bathroom pipe.

What price street art? (Quite high, actually)

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

One of the obvious problems with street art is that while it might try to highlight social ills, it can end up selling for many thousands of pounds to the elite that it supposedly rails against.

Banksy gets the bunting out in north London

Tue, 15 May 2012 13:24:38 +0100

A new piece of street art bearing all the hallmarks of a Banksy (pictured, above) appeared overnight in north London.

Guy Ribes: The forger making a good impression in the film world

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:00:01 +0100

He was a master-forger jailed for faking Renoir paintings in a multi-million-pound scam that duped the art world for years. Now, having served his time, Guy Ribes has returned to his old trade – this time with a different aim.

Alice Jones' Arts Diary: Kerb your enthusiasm... Seinfeld and David could be revving up for a reunion

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:36 +0100

He's announced that he is quitting arena shows, now Jerry Seinfeld is dropping cryptic hints about his brand new project for the screen.

David Lister: Artists must take a stand against ticket booking fees that add insult to injury

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:35 +0100

In my long campaign against booking fees in the arts, I have heard quite a number of horror stories from readers. But an email from Susan James this week probably takes the biscuit.

Observations: New show was five years waiting in the wings

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:07 +0100

The artist Keith Holmes paints actors, directors – even a show's technical crew – during rehearsals and backstage in the West End.

Observations: Putting the stuffing into a long night at the museum

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Hundreds of museums and art galleries across the country will stay open late or all night next weekend as part of the Museums At Night project.

Anish Kapoor's Olympic Orbit tower unveiled

Fri, 11 May 2012 14:45:48 +0100

The UK's tallest sculpture was officially unveiled today at Stratford's Olympic Park.

Ai Weiwei reaps £480,000 from sack of seeds of fortune

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has sold a ton of the porcelain sunflower seeds he displayed at the Tate Modern for $782,000 (£480,000), a record sum for his work which should help to pay off his tax bill if an appeal against the Chinese taxman does not go his way.

Unemployed Ohio man's luck changes after discovering signed Picasso print

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:26:32 +0100

An unemployed US man was browsing at his local thrift store for items he could restore and resell when he spotted a Picasso poster. He handed over $14.14 for what he saw as a nice commercial print.

Early sketch by Andy Warhol goes on display

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:22:23 +0100

A recently-discovered sketch by Andy Warhol is to go on public display for the first time.

Tate gives a big show to Roy Lichtenstein

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

The Tate Modern will next year stage the first major UK exhibition devoted to Roy Lichtenstein in 20 years, its most comprehensive retrospective of the celebrated pop artist. The exhibition, which opens next spring, will bring together 125 of the artist's definitive paintings and sculptures.

How the war on terror could solve art's most enduring mysteries

Tue, 08 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Software developed to recognise terrorist faces is being adapted to solve the mystery of portraits of unidentified people.

For sale: thousands of pounds worth of Pete Doherty's blood, sweat and tears

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Each piece could fetch tens of thousands of pounds when it is auctioned next week. But despite the high price tag, this is one collection of artwork unlikely to find its way into the austere corridors of Sotheby's.

Observations: Artefects from classic stage sets show the value of theatre design

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:40 +0100

There's an Inca mask from Peter Shaffer's The Royal Hunt of the Sun; the bench that Laurence Olivier once sat on in Uncle Vanya; and a delicate Patrick Procktor watercolour of a theatre on green lawns shadowed by a golden oak.

David Lister: All this culture was going on anyway. So why make an Olympiad out of it?

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:05 +0100

The Cultural Olympiad fascinates me. There it is in all its multi-million-pound glory, its London 2012 festival officially launched to tremendous fanfare a matter of days ago. Events announced included Jeremy Deller's "Stonehenge as a bouncy castle" and Martin Creed's Work No 1197 (this entails all the bells in the country being rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes).

Turner, Bacon, Freud, Constable? No, Britain is Banksy country

Fri, 04 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Cheeky, yes. Rebellious, definitely. But quintessentially British? Banksy's image of kissing policemen, originally daubed on a Brighton pub wall, has been surprisingly named the single work of art that best expresses British identity in a poll of 1,000 artists.

Man who's made an art form out of auction records

Thu, 03 May 2012 18:17:05 +0100

For Tobias Meyer, the moment that bids for The Scream reached $100m was special.

Edvard Munch's 'Scream' sets auction record

Thu, 03 May 2012 07:01:55 +0100

It evokes the worst of human angst but at Sotheby’s in New York last night a version of the ‘Scream’ by Edvard Munch bought something closer to astonished wonder as it sold for $119.9 million, breaking all previous records.

From Jabba the Hutt to shipping disasters – the inspiration for Turner Prize art

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Spartacus Chetwynd (38)

Turner Prize nominations unveiled

Tue, 01 May 2012 16:07:12 +0100

A man who has spent 15 years drawing an imaginary city whose residents are human excrement who have sex in public, and a woman who changed her name to Spartacus have been nominated for this year's Turner Prize.

Tate Modern fills tanks with live performance

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:18:19 +0100

The Tate is looking to take performance and live art into the mainstream with the world’s first ever dedicated gallery space launching later this year.

Tate to showcase performance art

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

The Tate Modern is launching the world's first dedicated gallery space for performance and live art.

Beatles as you've never seen them before

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Unseen photos of The Beatles are going on sale after lying in a family album for nearly 50 years. The 20 black-and-white snaps have never been published and show the Fab Four on the cusp of becoming a world phenomenon.

Julian Spalding challenges Tate director to public debate over Hirst exhibition

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 15:40:26 +0100

Julian Spalding, who has headed some of Britain's foremost public galleries, has laid down a gauntlet in a letter to the Tate director, challenging him to a public debate to justify why the art gallery has spent taxpayers’ money on a Hirst exhibition when the “works aren’t art”.

Skip to the Louvre... in Pas de Calais. Museum opens site in the north

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

There will be no need to travel all the way to Paris to see the Louvre from the end of this year. Over 200 of the museum's most important works will be moving to a new branch in Lens in the Pas de Calais, just across the Channel.

David Lister: Well done the Proms for showing you don't have to genuflect to the Olympics

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

This was the big week. The countdown to the event of the summer, with every newspaper along with TV and radio doing some version of the story. Yes, the Proms is just around the corner. But somehow the Proms neglected to present itself quite like that, and it was left to that other summer jamboree to garner the majority of the column inches. There is, though, something that links the Olympics and the Proms. At last an arts event has launched with the confidence and enthusiasm to show that the timidity and defeatism elsewhere in the arts is absurd.

The curious case of the vanishing treasures

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

The thieves came only two and a half hours after closing time at Cambridge University's lavish museum last Friday night. They made off with 18 exquisite pieces of Chinese art: masterpieces in jade, jasper and bronze dating back to the 14th century and estimated to be worth millions of pounds.

Naples museum burns art works in cuts protest

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

A museum chief in Naples has begun torching contemporary works of art in protest at budget cuts that have hit Italy's cultural institutes particularly hard.

Mueck gives it some stick in first show in years

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Ron Mueck's Drift is hung yesterday at the Hauser & Wirth gallery in central London. The artist puts the finishing touches to Woman with Sticks, right. The pieces make up part of a series of four "lifelike" sculptures, and form Mueck's first major solo exhibition in more than a decade. dan kitwood/getty images

V&A visits hit all time high

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:42:45 +0100

Last year the V&A had the most visits in its 155-year history, as the demand for cultural exhibitions in the UK continues to soar.

So, she truly was Leonardo's labour of love

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

She has been attacked, parodied and gawped at for 500 years, but still the Mona Lisa keeps smiling. Now, she has suffered perhaps the ultimate impertinence, as curators have questioned her age.

David Lister: One language, two cultures – but not everything needs to be translated for America

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:00:36 +0100

There was something about the previews on Broadway this week of the West End hit One Man, Two Guvnors which fascinated me far more than whether James Corden would win over New York audiences. He did, of course, and deserved to with a comic tour de force.

Titian 'copy' turns out to be a real work of art

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

For years, a painting in the National Gallery was labelled as a 16th-century copy created after Titian and rarely seen by the public, having been variously relegated to the lower galleries and conservation studios.

Edvard Munch's Scream goes on show in London

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:02:48 +0100

The only privately-owned version of Edvard Munch's classic masterpiece The Scream has gone on show in London for the first time before it is sold at auction in New York.

A light goes out as 'King of Kitsch' dies aged 54

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Thomas Kinkade, the much-derided but hugely successful king of kitsch, has died at the age of 54. He was the painter whose saccharine-saturated, idealised landscapes suffused with artificial-looking light offended the critics yet were so popular that they hung in an estimated 10 million American homes. Their sales, plus their licensing on everything from greetings cards to plates, made him immensely wealthy.

David Lister: I've had enough of the critics who insist on telling the world what is and isn't art

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

What is it about art? Not art generally, as in culture, but art in particular, the visual arts. What is it about the visual arts that make people feel entitled to decree on behalf of the rest of the population what can and cannot be art?

Second coming: Sheen preaches gospel of the arts in Port Talbot

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

In these austere times, it won't only be residents of Port Talbot who recognise the description of "a town with low self-esteem" where it "felt like there was little going on". But not every industrial town has a son like Michael Sheen to do something about it.

Francis Bacon painting could fetch £25m

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:13:29 +0100

A Francis Bacon painting that has been held in a private collection for more than 30 years could fetch as much as £25 million when it goes on sale next month.

Collectibles: The art of the playground fad

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

If you didn't spend much time in school playgrounds during the mid-1980s, then the Garbage Pail Kids will mean very little to you. But to those of us who swapped and hoarded these gross stickers, a new hardcover collection of their artwork makes for a particularly sick nostalgia trip. The Garbage Pail Kids were produced by US collectibles manufacturer Topps. Each pack contained one stick of dry bubble gum and three stickers. The book, Garbage Pail Kids (Abrams, £12.99), features images of 206 stickers: some hauntingly familiar, others infuriatingly rare.

Portrait fame for newspaper vendor

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

A newspaper seller is to have his image hung not once but three times in the National Portrait Gallery after a triptych of him was selected for the shortlist of the nation's most prestigious portrait award.

Ai Weiwei – the reality show: artist turns the spotlight on himself

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

It's a cross between a reality TV show and performance art, an insightful comment on the Orwellian levels of surveillance under which he lives. The Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has set up four live webcams in his Beijing home in a deliberate nod to the 24-hour monitoring he has been under since he was detained over a year ago.

Ten more UK galleries join Google Art Project's virtual tours

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:35:47 +0100

Until now, anyone who aspired to be well versed in the artistic highlights of the world’s great galleries required time, money and a penchant for air travel. Soon, they will need just a laptop.

Look back in anger: Hirst turns on critics on eve of his retrospective

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

On the eve of his blockbuster London show, Damien Hirst has hit back at the critic who deemed his work "worthless" and urged collectors not to sell up, adding in unashamedly capitalist terms that art is the "greatest currency in the world". Hirst, whose wealth has been estimated at more than £200m, said he was pleased to have "made lots of money", adding: "I'm not afraid of that."

Censorship claims after scourge of Hirst is denied entry to the Tate

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Days after The Independent published his stark condemnation of Damien Hirst as a "con artist" whose art is "worthless" financially and artistically, Julian Spalding was yesterday barred from entry to the Tate's Hirst exhibition.

Forgotten work by Cézanne to fetch £12.5m

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

A long-forgotten work by Paul Cézanne is expected to fetch up to £12.5m at an auction next month.

Damien Hirst work on sale in Tate Modern retrospective

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:41:47 +0100

Damien Hirst merchandise, from a deckchair to a plastic skull, is on sale for eye-watering price tags of up to £36,800 at the first UK retrospective of the controversial British artist.

Battle to save Cocteau's hidden legacy from vandals and decay

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Restorers are working in a little-known French church in central London to save works of art by the celebrated filmmaker Jean Cocteau which are threatened by pollution and "vandalism".

David Lister: Don't bother appointing a new boss at the Arts Council – just abolish this quango

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0100

The Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has decided not to reappoint Dame Liz Forgan as chair of the Arts Council. There is inevitably speculation as to whom he will appoint to succeed her. In the frame are said to be Michael Portillo, the former Conservative minister, Veronica Wadley, the former newspaper editor and already the Arts Council's London chair, and Peter Bazalgette, the television executive, who can boast, if he chooses to, of inventing Big Brother.

Long-awaited restoration of Leonardo masterpiece delights critics in the Louvre

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0100

A much-disputed face-lift given to Leonard da Vinci's final masterpiece was unveiled to the public at the Louvre in Paris yesterday.

Hopefuls canvas support at the RA

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Artists including a Danish café owner and a painter from Belgium queued to hand in their submissions for the 244th Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in central London yesterday.

Sell up now before it's too late, expert tells Damien Hirst fans

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Sell while you can. That is the stark warning from a senior museum figure to anyone who has bought an artwork by Damien Hirst, the self-styled enfant terrible of British art.

Last-ditch effort to save Wedgwood collection for nation

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Plans to save one of the world's most important ceramic collections, which could be dispersed and sold abroad, will be hammered out this week by Culture minister, Ed Vaizey.

David Lister: Mad Men's lesson for British TV drama – viewers get the era without a sledgehammer

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

In the television drama series White Heat, the house of Sixties students and young wage earners are very selective TV watchers. When the television in the house is on, it is showing the Vietnam War or Harold Wilson's devaluation speech, or a demo or a news bulletin. What a serious bunch, so commendably committed to current affairs. They never settled down on the sofa with a beer and chuckled at The Likely Lads, or tested their wits against University Challenge.

Anger as Arts Council chief is forced to quit by ministers

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

The British arts world was reeling yesterday after the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, moved to replace the popular Dame Liz Forgan as the chair of Arts Council England (ACE).

Trending: Damien does digital

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Brace yourselves, YBA fans – the official Damienhirst.com website has gone live. So what treats are in store online?

Warhol you can wear – but will it be in vogue for more than 15 minutes?

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

If everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes, as Andy Warhol said, they can make sure they look fabulous at the same time with the launch of a range of cosmetics dedicated to the Campbell's Soup Cans artist.

Two for the price of one: Van Gogh confirmed - with another underneath

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:45:10 +0000

To discover one new painting by Van Gogh is exciting enough. To discover two in one is extraordinary. The finds were announced today.

Crowd pleaser: Winning images from around the world

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

The winners of the Open and Youth categories in the Sony World Photography Awards 2012 were announced today.

Do I hear a billion? Sotheby's sales surge as art market bucks downturn

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

It might seem like everything is crashing down around us in Austerity Britain, but judging by the bumper-billion-pound sales figures disclosed by one London auction house, it appears now is the perfect time to cash in on those artistic masterpieces you've left gathering dust in your attic.

David Lister: If opera is going to reflect everyday life, it needs to get rid of the stereotypes

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

When Kasper Holten, the Dane who is now running the Royal Opera House, gave his first press conference this week, he said he would learn from the success of TV dramas like The Killing, "not go for short-term gratification" and take ROH audiences "out of their comfort zone".

Gone for a song: The lost Van Dyck worth a fortune

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

A leading British art dealer has discovered a highly-significant and previously-unknown oil sketch by Van Dyck linked to his most important English painting, the portrait of Charles I and his family in the Royal Collection.

German museum ordered to return Nazi-seized art to Jewish owner's American son

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:16:00 +0000

A Berlin museum must return thousands of rare posters to an American man, part of his Jewish father's unique collection that had been seized by the Nazis, Germany's top federal appeals court ruled today.

Google doodle pays tribute to origami 'grandmaster' Akira Yoshizawa

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:41:49 +0000

Google has created a new 'doodle' celebrating what would have been the 101st birthday of origami master Akira Yoshizawa.

A demanding, daunting – and in some cases destructive – profession

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

The Last Supper was unveiled in 1999 after two decades of restoration. The work, under the direction of fresco expert Pinin Brambilla Barcilon alongside Leonardo da Vinci scholar Pietro Marani, involved the removal of centuries of grime, the reversing of previous restorations and fixing the disrepair that started after the original artist had put down his brush.

Have art restorers ruined Leonardo's masterpiece?

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

The restorer of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper "blundered" in restoring the central figure of Christ, according to research by a British art expert.

Sale of the 20th century: a playboy's Pop Art

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

International playboy Gunter Sachs was friends with Andy Warhol and married Brigitte Bardot after showering her with roses from a helicopter. After his suicide last year, it has emerged that his art collection will be auctioned in London this spring. Sotheby's yesterday announced it was to put almost 300 works up for sale, saying it was the "most remarkable and prestigious single-owner collection to appear at auction".

The Mona Lisa code: is a Leonardo under the surface?

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Experts believe they are close to confirming that a lost Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece is hidden in the cavity of a medieval Italian building.

David Lister: The Royal Court wants new short plays? Here are two on what's wrong with theatre

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

It's a fine idea of the Royal Court theatre to ask the public for plays of 100 words or fewer, plays that won't necessarily be staged but will be stuck up on the walls of the venue, in the bars, even in the toilets. I will, if I may, take up the challenge and offer a couple of 100-word plays in the hope that they might be displayed on the walls of the Royal Court.

An even bigger splash by Gilbert and George

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Over the past six years, artists Gilbert and George have pinched 3,712 lurid headline posters from their local newsagent. The result, London Pictures, is an exhibition that presents a starkly different image of London from the one promoted to visitors for the Olympics.

The late, late shows: art galleries burn midnight oil for blockbusters

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

The National Portrait Gallery has released thousands more tickets for its Lucian Freud exhibition in a bid to keep up with huge demand, as "blockbuster" art shows become the hottest ticket in London in the run-up to the Olympics.

German painter forged masters' works to 'meet women and travel'

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

The convicted "hippie painter" behind Germany's most spectacular art-forgery scandal has revealed that he faked the works of at least 50 famous painters over a career spanning decades and started because he wanted to "have fun, travel and meet women".

Tate spends a pile on seeds

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Tate Modern has bought about eight million individually crafted porcelain sunflower seeds from the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei – its largest number of works of art. The purchase, which weighs 10 tons, follows an installation of 100 million of the seeds in the London gallery's Turbine Hall.

David Lister: Carry on booing – and let the drama continue right to the end of the curtain call

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Not for the first time, a performance of an opera was met with furious booing this week. This has certainly happened in London before. The venue for booing has tended to be English National Opera, which specialises in radical productions. But on this occasion it was the Royal Opera House, where the setting of Dvorak's magical Rusalka in a brothel did not please the first-night audience.

Artwork saved! But was it worth it?

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

How many Titians does one nation need? You can never have enough, claimed the director of the National Gallery after raiding his reserves to add one more masterpiece to the collection for a £45m fee. But while reuniting Diana and Callisto with its £50m companion Diana and Actaeon has delighted the National Gallery, the belief that every great work must be "saved for the nation" is being tested by the straightened economic climate.

National Gallery saves Titian painting for nation‎

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:51:29 +0000

Titian's masterpiece Diana and Callisto has been saved for the nation in a £45 million deal.

Contemporary Art Society to stage leap day fundraiser

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:06:07 +0000

The Contemporary Art Society, a leading light for the promotion of modern art in Britain, is tomorrow auctioning off 44 works by some of the biggest names in the art world, including Paula Rego, Spencer Tunick and Bob & Roberta Smith.

Emma Thompson to play Queen in new TV drama

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:08:57 +0000

Emma Thompson is to portray the Queen in a TV drama based on the famous Buckingham Palace burglary 30 years ago.

Record-breaking cardstacker completes Houses of Parliament feat

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:06:41 +0000

American cardstacker Bryan Berg completed a giant model of the Houses of Parliament yesterday, after a week's modelling.

US university sells giant $1m sculpture for only $150

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

The University of California, Berkeley may be one of the tightest concentrations of intelligence in the US, but it turns out to be capable of acts of stunning stupidity – as art lovers discovered this week with news that it sold a $1m sculpture by a prominent black artist for $150.

The Scream expected to fetch $80m at auction

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

The Scream, one of the most alarming paintings of all time, is expected to fetch more than $80m (£50m) when it goes under the hammer this spring.

Edvard Munch's masterpiece The Scream predicted to fetch £50m-plus at auction

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:28:04 +0000

A version of Edvard Munch's masterpiece The Scream is to go on display in London in April before being auctioned in New York the following month.

Fifty years of Hockney are sold in one night

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Britain "greatest living artist" pulled in the crowds at an auction of his works yesterday, with not a painting to be seen.

Rich art collectors 'know the price of everything – and the value of nothing'

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Art dealers have been reduced to mere "commodity brokers" as the super-rich have lost interest in the aesthetic value of major works and instead obsess about their monetary worth, according to one of the industry's most experienced auctioneers.

Queen's Jubilee portrait revealed

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

A new Diamond Jubilee portrait of the Queen has been released by Buckingham Palace today. The photograph, taken to mark the 60th anniversary of the accession to the throne of Queen Elizabeth II, was taken in the Centre Room of Buckingham Palace by John Swannell.

Never mind the Sex Pistols – punk artist backs Occupy

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

His artwork for "Never Mind the Bollocks" helped bring the Sex Pistols' only studio album to the wider world, defining the image of British punk rock. Now the anarchist Jamie Reid, 65, has stepped back into the limelight, supporting the Occupy movement and espousing the view that politics is now "far more repressive" than when he launched his career.

Samuel Aranda wins World Press Photo

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:23:49 +0000

The overall World Press Photo 2011 prize winner was revealed today to be Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda. He takes the gong for his shot of a Yemeni woman cradling an injured relative in her arms during violent clashes between anti-government demonstrators in Sanaa.

Yayoi Kusama brings colour to Tate Modern

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:10:08 +0000

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama was in London yesterday to open a retrospective of her work at Tate Modern.

Ai Weiwei defies China with Serpentine installation

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Ai Weiwei has been imprisoned, barred from leaving his homeland by the Chinese government and told not to speak to anyone outside its borders. That has not stopped the dissident artist from designing this year's Pavilion at London's Serpentine Gallery.

David Lister: Is this a case of a great but troubled ballet star being wronged? I don't think so

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

On Thursday, it was reported that Sergei Polunin, the Royal Ballet star who dramatically quit the company a week ago, has now lost his work permit, according to a Royal Ballet spokesperson. It would take a hard-hearted person not to feel sympathy with the brilliant 22-year-old. So, call me hard-hearted, because I'm afraid I don't.

Cézanne sale breaks world record

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

A painting by Paul Cézanne of two peasants playing cards has sold for a record price of £158.4 million.

The most expensive wall painting ever?

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Jackson Pollock may lose his record for creating the most expensive painting ever – and not to another enfant terrible of the art world , but to a minor Los Angeles mural painter who happened upon the Facebook offices in 2005.

Mona Lisa's 'twin sister' is discovered – 500 years late

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:40 +0000

The Mona Lisa at the Prado in Madrid was thought to be just another fine copy, with added eyebrows and an odd black background. But curators at Spain's national art museum yesterday announced a startling discovery: the painting was actually executed by an artist in Leonardo da Vinci's workshop at the same time as the original.

National Gallery staff in walkout

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:48:41 +0000

Workers at the National Gallery in London will stage another strike tomorrow in a continuing row over jobs.