Reviews
The unstable bodies of Gabriella Boyd
For the Scottish painter, the line between figures and their surroundings can be intriguingly blurry
The Royal Academy reframes its past
The institution’s unravelling of its involvement with empire is very welcome, but has ‘Entangled Pasts’ bitten off more than one exhibition can chew?
The dreamlike visions of Julia Margaret Cameron and Francesca Woodman
Despite being separated by more than a century, the two photographers shared a distinctly hazy aesthetic
Faith Ringgold debunks the myth of the American dream
Faith Ringgold has died at the age of 93. In 2022, Nicole Rudick reviewed her New Museum retrospective, admiring the artist’s lifelong search for better stories to tell about the United States
How Stanley Kubrick did it his way
A new life of the auteur lays bare the obsessiveness behind his films and what it cost everyone around him
The problem with Paul Gauguin
There’s no doubt that the painter was an important and intriguing artist, but that doesn’t excuse his behaviour
The restless spirit of Sonia Delaunay
The artist’s irrepressible energy shines out in this survey of her long career at Bard Graduate Center, writes Eve M. Kahn
The beautiful but deadly world of Edward Burtynsky
In documenting the damage humans have done to the planet, the photographer has created a disturbingly thrilling record of environmental disaster
The Flemish Masters whose striking sketches still draw the eye
An exhibition at the Ashmolean suggests that for Rubens and his peers, graphite, ink and chalk were not simply preparatory tools but a means of reinventing matter
Martin Boyce keeps his distance
In the Turner Prize-winner’s first major show in Scotland in two decades, his sculptures are best viewed at something of a remove
How the nine-to-five gave artists ways to make a living
Far from hindering budding Barbara Krugers and Andy Warhols, day jobs have sometimes helped the creative process
The making of the Monet myth
Jackie Wullschläger’s biography invites us to take another look at a painter whose canvases make a direct appeal to the eye
Dan Flavin’s light touch
The artist bristled at attempts to analyse his work, but an exhibition at Kunstmuseum Basel suggests that his fluorescent fittings are still open to interpretation
Pride and prejudice in 19th-century France
Depictions of lions by leading lights of the Romantic movement and more Academic types reveal humanity’s dark side
How Peter Blake makes his sculptures Pop
The artist has always combined high and low culture, and an exhibition at Waddington Custot captures his witty approach to assemblage
A Renaissance painter restored to his rightful place in art history
The conservation of two jewel-like panels by Francesco Pesellino is an opportunity to discover a little-known artist who was highly regarded by the Medici
The sound of silence – how Joshua Leon gives voice to Jewish history
The artist’s harmonious installation at Chisenhale Gallery memorialises his musician grandfather
Forging relationships – Eduardo Paolozzi at 100
A centenary celebration of the Edinburgh-born artist puts his collaborative side in the spotlight
Lee Ufan and the art of slowness
The South Korean artist has perfected an aesthetic of harmony and balance that rewards patient looking
Reel life – how Zineb Sedira found herself through film
At the Whitechapel Gallery, the French-Algerian unspools personal and political histories through imitation sets and empty stages
The clockwork marvels that tell a tale of two empires
These timepieces are fluttering, chiming embodiments of how Britain and China traded with each other in the 18th and 19th centuries
Breaking the mould – the women who rewrote the rules of sculpture
In the decades after the Second World War, female artists chafed at the strictures of abstraction and began expressing their gender through their work
The bric-a-brac brilliance of Gillian Lowndes
An exhibition of the late ceramicist’s creations features only 11 works, but open-minded viewers will find plenty to delight in
Art of the blue – the chilly iconoclasm of Rayyane Tabet
The Lebanese artist’s new installation cleverly undermines the utopian ambitions of the architecture that surrounds it
What Severance says about our fractured selves