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Skateboards: Hirst on wheels... yours for £1,200

Artist taps into the cool designer skateboard market, but the exorbitant prices he is charging have infuriated aficionados.

A feast of culture: The best arts events over the Easter break

Fed up with egg hunts? Then put a bounce in your break with Pina Bausch on film, Ghost on stage, acrobatics on the South Bank and much more. Elizabeth Davis selects the holiday's cultural highlights

Artists celebrate 25 years of Beck's Art Labels

Go for a drink at The Ten Bells pub in east London this month and you'll see (and hear) Tracey Emin. Not literally of course, but on a Beck's beer label and audio recording as part of the beer brand's celebration of 25 years of Beck's Art Labels.

Jeff Koons bites back at 'copies' of balloon dog

How much is that doggy in the window? If it's a shiny sculpture by the artist Jeff Koons, then they start at $7,000 [£4,400]; if it's a plastic bookend produced by Toronto manufacturer Imm-Living and sold in a San Francisco art gallery you're looking at a mere $30 [£19]. And therein lies a snowballing legal dispute.

Dylan Jones: 'Damien Hirst’s enormous workshop makes Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons look like amateurs'

Now, I don't tend to do guided tours. Don't like the idea of having my hand held while I move from exhibit to exhibit, room to room. Once, 18 years ago, I wangled a trip to New York just so I could see the Matisse exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, and I remember being shocked at the lines of visitors, glacially moving from exhibition space to exhibition space, dutifully listening to the catalogue headsets, and nodding earnestly, almost as one.

Joana Vasconcelos: I Will Survive, Haunch of Venison, London

I walked past one of Joana Vasconcelos's large sculptures at Haunch of Venison before I realised it was there. As I entered the lobby it seemed that part of the gallery had been cordoned off and I was being led in a particular direction by a series of ropes. It wasn't until I looked more closely at the ropes, the kind you might find sheathed in velvet at a fancy club, that I realised they were made from long thick glossy hair in blonde, brown and auburn, which, arranged in a plaited style, seems like women's hair. The work is called One Way (Una Dirección) (2003) and, with a simple gesture, Vasconcelos highlights the ways in which women can be oppressed, held in place, or, worse, trafficked, and how ideals of beauty can play a part in this. This exhibition is filled with works that brilliantly tackle this kind of territory without being bogged down in it – this Portuguese artist's sculptures always look wonderful, excessive and extremely rich, while posing awkward questions.

Yves Klein, at his very bluest

As a painting that scandalised Paris comes up for sale, Arifa Akbar speaks to the gallerist who made it happen

The $100m Warhol

Unique print projects pop artist into top-10 sellers list

Chairman Mao as you've never seen him before (and as the Chinese government would rather you hadn't)

The younger of the Gao brothers bursts into his studio, explains that he is late because of a car crash, and pulls Chairman Mao's head from a plastic bag. Then he attaches it to the late Great Helmsman's corpulent, kneeling body.

Editor-At-Large: Superwoman is now dolled up as the supermissus

Forget WAGs: there is a new female royalty. They spend their time espousing worthy causes while dressing for maximum impact. They maximise every photo opportunity, they twitter and they blog; getting their man's message out is the name of the game, all in the name of PR. But, unlike their husbands, they've never stood for political office. In fact, they don't really have a proper job, in spite of being well educated and highly intelligent. Some might say they represent a giant step backwards for womankind. These leaders' wives are famous for being a Mrs – women with another man's name identifying them. I don't know about you, but this isn't what I've fought for in the name of equality.

Tate axes nude Brooke Shields picture after police porn probe

A provocative nude picture of a 10-year-old Brooke Shields was removed from a major exhibition following a police pornography probe.

Pop life: Meet the stars of the New York and London art scenes

When new york city's Gramercy Park Hotel opened its doors in May 1994 to a group of gallery owners showcasing the works of their young artists, a "spontaneous" event in one of its rooms involving a British dealer and his female protégé made the city's adrenaline-fuelled art world stop and stare. Tracey Emin, a tousle-haired artist from Margate, had accompanied Jay Jopling, her London dealer and the owner of White Cube Gallery, to the contemporary art fair, which was spread across 32 hired rooms at the Manhattan hotel – and on that Sunday morning, she crept into the bed on which Jopling was perched, impishly covered them both with the embroidered bedspread she was there to sell (for $4,000), and smiled for the cameras.

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Special report: How my father's face turned up in Robert Capa's lost suitcase

Special report: How my father's face turned up in Robert Capa's lost suitcase

The great war photographer was not one person but two. Their pictures of Spain's civil war, lost for decades, tell a heroic tale
The unmade speech: An alternative draft of history

The unmade speech: An alternative draft of history

Someone, somewhere has to write speeches for world leaders to deliver in the event of disaster. They offer a chilling hint at what could have been
Funny business: Meet the women running comedy

Funny business: Meet the women running comedy

Think comedy’s a man's world? You must be stuck in the 1980s, says Holly Williams
Wilko Johnson: 'You have to live for the minute you're in'

Wilko Johnson: 'You have to live for the minute you're in'

The Dr Feelgood guitarist talks frankly about his terminal illness
Lure of the jingle: Entrepreneurs are giving vintage ice-cream vans a new lease of life

Lure of the jingle

Entrepreneurs are giving vintage ice-cream vans a new lease of life
Who stole the people's own culture?

DJ Taylor: Who stole the people's own culture?

True popular art drives up from the streets, but the commercial world wastes no time in cashing in
Guest List: The IoS Literary Editor suggests some books for your summer holiday

Guest List: IoS Literary Editor suggests some books for your summer holiday

Before you stuff your luggage with this year's Man Booker longlist titles, the case for some varied poolside reading alternatives
What if Edward Snowden had stayed to fight his corner?

Rupert Cornwell: What if Edward Snowden had stayed to fight his corner?

The CIA whistleblower struck a blow for us all, but his 1970s predecessor showed how to win
'A man walks into a bar': Comedian Seann Walsh on the dangers of mixing alcohol and stand-up

Comedian Seann Walsh on alcohol and stand-up

Comedy and booze go together, says Walsh. The trouble is stopping at just the one. So when do the hangovers stop being funny?
From Edinburgh to Hollywood (via the Home Counties): 10 comedic talents blowing up big

Edinburgh to Hollywood: 10 comedic talents blowing up big

Hugh Montgomery profiles the faces to watch, from the sitcom star to the surrealist
'Hello. I have cancer': When comedian Tig Notaro discovered she had a tumour she decided the show must go on

Comedian Tig Notaro: 'Hello. I have cancer'

When Notaro discovered she had a tumour she decided the show must go on
They think it's all ova: Bill Granger's Asia-influenced egg recipes

Bill Granger's Asia-influenced egg recipes

Our chef made his name cooking eggs, but he’s never stopped looking for new ways to serve them
The world wakes up to golf's female big hitters

The world wakes up to golf's female big hitters

With its own Tiger Woods - South Korea's Inbee Park - the women's game has a growing audience
10 athletes ready to take the world by storm in Moscow next week

10 athletes ready to take the world by storm in Moscow next week

Here are the potential stars of the World Championships which begin on Saturday
The Last Word: Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale's art of manipulation

The Last Word: Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale's art of manipulation

Briefings are off the record leading to transfer speculation which is merely a means to an end