Opinion

What Art History Can Reveal About the ‘Backrooms’ Aesthetic What Does the UK’s Social Media Ban Mean for the Future of Art and Culture? Cheng Xinhao Rediscovers the Magic of the Railway Lanza Atelier’s 2026 Serpentine Pavilion Invites Play, But at What Cost?

Opinion What Art History Can Reveal About the ‘Backrooms’ Aesthetic The furniture‑strewn, labyrinthine corridors of box office hit Backrooms evoke a strange nostalgia in which uneasy familiarity triggers memory, a phenomenon the art world has long explored.

Opinion What Does the UK’s Social Media Ban Mean for the Future of Art and Culture? The UK government’s ban on under‑16s accessing certain social media platforms will impact their ability to discover the art world—but perhaps it’s time we all started to search for creativity in spaces where algorithms don’t dictate our taste.

Opinion / One Work Cheng Xinhao Rediscovers the Magic of the Railway As part of his exhibition tracing historical journeys in Yunnan, Cheng Xinhao takes a train back through time to revisits and reinterpret a 1937 travelogue and a 1954 woodblock print.

Opinion Lanza Atelier’s 2026 Serpentine Pavilion Invites Play, But at What Cost? This year’s Serpentine pavilion architects encourage the building’s users to freely express themselves within the space, yet there is a darker side to the English pastoral history it is built upon.

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“The image is dead. Long live the image. When the funerary veil is lifted, when the grief settles, reality looks oh so lovely.”

Ruby Justice Thelot on the Year in Images, 2025

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