Apollo's wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art and museum stories. Got a story for Rakewell? Email rakewell@apollomag.com. Follow @Rakewelltweets.

Cate Blanchett makes a mockery of Marina Abramović

Cate Blanchett has pastiched the performance artist for Documentary Now!

7 Mar 2019
Bob Marley in London in June 1977, photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images

No more waiting in vain for Bob Marley fans

English Heritage marks the musician’s time in Chelsea, but a literary festival’s calls for pink plaques in Highgate falls flat

28 Feb 2019
The Macallan 60-year-old 1926 single malt up for sale at Bonhams in March (right); Gerhard Richter’s label for the 2015 vintage of Chateau Mouton Rothschild

Whisky galore – and other bottles you can collect

Francis Bacon, Jeff Koons and Gerhard Richter are just a few of the artists who have taken to the bottle and designed labels for famous brands

28 Feb 2019
150 Rembrandts.

All the other Rembrandts – from soft rock to cigarettes

The Rijksmuseum gathered 150 people called Rembrandt to launch its new exhibition – but that’s just the start of the the painter’s curious legacy

22 Feb 2019

When Ed Sheeran met David Hockney

Ed Sheeran has joined the big league – by becoming the latest star to pose for David Hockney

17 Feb 2019

Jeremy Corbyn’s heritage hang-ups

Plus: Donald Trump’s wedding cake goes under the hammer, and Lars von Trier turns his films into diamonds

17 Feb 2019

From bus tours to bacteria – a brief cultural guide to Brian Blessed

The thunderous thespian is to voice the bacteria that spread the Black Death for a new display at the Museum of London

9 Feb 2019

Bloody ballads and semen straw sculptures

The latest bizarre artworks to come to Rakewell’s attention feature blood donations and cattle-rearing devices

1 Feb 2019

The secret of David Hockney’s tomato sandwich

In a short film by Ridley Scott, David Hockney opens up about his time at the Royal College of Art – and mischievous visits to the V&A

1 Feb 2019

A decadent darling decamps from Twitter

Bougie London Literary Woman has sidled away from social media – for now. Rakewell rounds up some of her art-related tweets

27 Jan 2019

A monumental mix-up in Aberdeenshire

Plus: Toto forever in the Namib Desert and art students in China face an overfamiliar exam

27 Jan 2019

Olivia Colman’s royal capers and tapers

Critics have waxed lyrical about The Favourite – but spare a thought for the candle crew on set at Hatfield House

22 Jan 2019

Jake Gyllenhaal and the horrors of contemporary art

Gyllenhaal plays a contemporary art critic in a forthcoming art-world satire that was inspired by a trip to Dia: Beacon

20 Jan 2019

Bangers and cash – why currywurst has its own commemorative coin

Plus: the mysteries of Loic Gouzer and how a notorious art thief turned to drawing

20 Jan 2019

The photoshop fails of your favourite politicians

The Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has joined the ranks of politicians who have tried to airbrush themselves into history

13 Jan 2019
Photo: Ishbel MacDonald/BBC

Cutting criticism – a tale of Bendor Grosvenor’s cat

Plus: Salvador Dalí among the drug lords and how Jeremy Deller made his mother proud

9 Jan 2019
Visiting Harald Szeemann with the Flu (2018), Francesco Bonami

Hans Ulrich Obrist as you’ve never seen him before

Plus: Prince Charles, Leonard Cohen and Salvador Dalí, and the artistic tastes of Drake

4 Jan 2019

Michael Cohen, captured for posterity

Plus: Jools Holland and his model railway, and how Monster Chetwynd got her name

19 Dec 2018

The best of British booze culture – it’s the museum of Wetherspoons

The British pub chain has announced that it will develop a museum at a boozer in Wolverhampton

16 Dec 2018

The leaning fir tree of Southampton

Britain is bedecked with Christmas trees once more – and this year’s surprise hit is a tilting trunk in Southampton

9 Dec 2018

Fishy fragrances and Flemish still lifes

Plus: Lucian Freud on horseback and how Sex and the City made Marina Abramović

7 Dec 2018
Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889, Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh, young and old

A portrait photograph long thought to show Van Gogh turns out to depict his brother Theo

2 Dec 2018

David Davis, the accidental Roman emperor

Plus: a street artist with a vendetta in LA and Jerry Saltz dresses up as Frida Kahlo

29 Nov 2018

Michael Jackson’s moony marginalia

A copy of a self-help book once owned by Michael Jackson is up for auction – personalised by the King of Pop himself

23 Nov 2018