ST. LOUIS — 'On any body, to wear a tattoo is an act of change. It is a will being imposed. And perhaps this is why folks everywhere ... have all, in some shape or form, found themselves attracted to the practice: its value is, ultimately, for the holder, not the beholder.'So argues Bryan Washington in his piece on tattoos and the Black body...

In 2018, artists and curators across the United States have been crafting brilliant exhibitions across the US, exploring themes of identity and community in innovative ways. Ebony G. Patterson made a maximalist tribute to victims of violence in her home country of Jamaica, while Joel Otterson crafted work recalling his parents' professions as a...

At its core, what is your work about?Our world is packed with an abundance of images that constantly bombard us, and inevitably much of our reality today is filtered through cinema and media imagery. I question the limits of art as I question my own. While I use the language of art (amongst other tools for investigating our so-called consensus...

With the impending winter melancholy yet awaiting behind glitter-laden holiday vitrines and a few illusively warm afternoons, art galleries contribute to the season's festivities with ambitious solo exhibitions, showcasing the newest by art world key players and emerging talents. Bookended by the fall's back-to-school shows and Art Basel Miami,...

Art is more often a conversation than a monologue. Great and not-so-great artists have always wanted to surround themselves with paintings and objects that can speak to their own creative efforts. The most famous example of this desire perhaps is Henri Matisse, who as a young and struggling painter bought a small canvas by Paul Cézanne, Three...

Candida Höfer, 74, one of the biggest names in contemporary photography, is best known for photographs of interiors of public buildings such as libraries, museums and theaters without human presence in them.

A powerful new exhibition at New York’s Sean Kelly Gallery, Ravelled Threads brings together work by ten African artists utilising fabric in different ways. Cloth has cultural and spiritual significance throughout Africa, with a long history of use in storytelling, historical record keeping, political activism, and cultural expression.

Liu Wei is a towering figure in Chinese contemporary art, a leader among the first wave of Chinese artists to have their work recognized in the west. Emerging in the early 1990s with the Cynical Realism movement, Liu Wei responded to the dashed hopes and malaise of a generation impacted by the Tiananmen Square massacre by creating sarcastic...

If a 21st birthday "coming of age" observance can be applied to cultural events, 2018 marks the launch into adulthood of the Biennale of Sydney. In some ways Sydney's biennale was a precocious child, turning its back during infancy on mainstream Eurocentric art in favour of exploring its local geographic region, early on including...

In celebration of its 250th birthday, London's Royal Academy Of Arts explores the historic practice of life drawing in a revolutionary way. Beginning with the Academy's 18th-century origins, From Life continues to the present and, most intriguingly, moves into the future. Historical paintings hang alongside works by Cai Guo-Qiang, Jenny Saville,...

In addition to its ample cruelties and endlessly confounded sense of 'it can't go on like this much longer, can it?', 2017 has also been a year of profound historical torsion, marked by the return of specific figures and fears wrongly presumed to have been left in the present's wake. Consider, for instance, the starkly renewed appearance of fascists...

Last week, former U.S. president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama named the artists who will paint their official portraits for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Commentators who looked forward to learning how the Obamas, noted patrons of the arts, would shake up the stuffy establishment tradition of (white, male) artists...

To many born and in bred in Folkestone, their hometown is becoming more and more like a little London by the sea – for better or worse. As city folk descend, house prices rise, and empty second homes stand skeletal along the shore.With all the significant tensions that come with the Kentish gentrification, so too arrives relief, in the form of...

I recognized some of the faces in the paintings immediately: Hank Willis Thomas, Rashid Johnson and Sanford Biggers paired together, Derrick Adams, Kerry James Marshall, and Carrie Mae Weems. I've had meaningful conversations with some of these artists, seen the others from afar. They are all black, uniquely visible visual art celebrities. I had...

Rock, Paper, Scissors: Positions in Play — United Arab EmiratesCurated by Hammad Nasar, commissioned by the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation and supported by the UAE Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development, the exhibition features existing, new commissions and re-fabrications of 'lost' works by five UAE-based artists. The show...

What images keep you company in the space where you work?Quite a few: my portrait by Andy Warhol, a painting by Ad Reinhardt from 1960, a small painting by D.H. Lawrence, a late drawing by Giorgio Morandi, a 2004 autobiographical box/shelf work by Haim Steinbach; a group of small works, photos and drawings, by Man Ray, Rene Magritte, Marcel...

From September 26, 1981 to September 26, 1982, Tehching Hsieh lived outside in New York City, never seeking shelter in a building. He was 31 when he began the performance work, which he titled One Year Performance 1981–1982 (Outdoor Piece), and 32 when he finished it. Now he is 66 and representing Taiwan at the Biennale, where records of that work...

The most important global art event of the year is upon us, as thousands descend upon the slowly submerging islands in the Venetian Lagoon to view the microcosm of the art world that is the 57th Venice Biennale. In keeping with the theme of the exhibition by this year's curator, Christine Macel, Viva Arte Viva, in which she 'orientate[s] the...

Pakistani artist Shahzia Sikander (b 1969) has created and installed two site-specific installations commissioned by Princeton University's funding for campus art by living artists. Quintuplet Effect, a painting on glass, and Ecstasy as Sublime, Heart as Vector, a glass, ceramic, and marble mosaic, each continue Sikander's exploration of miniature...

'Art Brussels believes in galleries that support their artists throughout their evolution... We are definitely not interested in showing work in a supermarket-like style.' We speak with Anne Vierstraete, Managing Director of Art Brussels, as the fair nears its thirty-fifth edition.

The life and work of Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), one of the most influential artists and photographers of the 20th century, will be examined by Kunsthal Rotterdam this summer. Opening more than two decades after his death, the show focuses on key works that remain controversial and test the limits of what is artistically possible. a...

The world-renowned Biennale of Sydney is back next year to celebrate its 45th anniversary exhibition. Set to maintain its status as the largest and best-attended contemporary arts event in Australia, the 21st Biennale of Sydney is anticipated to once again bring an impressive and diverse range of contemporary artists and artworks to the...

There is a moment in Johan Grimonprez's short arthouse documentary | blue orchids | (2017) when Chris Hedges, former war correspondent and now well-known leftwing author and activist, describes the emotional toll of being exposed to the trauma of war – ...

The four recipients of this year's BALTIC Artists' Award are Jose Dávila, Eric N. Mack, Toni Schmale and Shen Xin. The winners of the 2017 prize were announced this month at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead.