#art and design

‘You can almost smell the sweat’: striptease artists and steel pans light up this week’s free art shows

Four free exhibitions take you from a luxury white enclave in Rio de Janeiro to exhausted erotic dancers touring the US and a culture-changing London address ★★★★☆ Continue reading...

Guardian Culture · EN

Wish you were here? Retro holiday guides – in pictures

As a child, Jonny Trunk never went on holiday – perhaps that’s why he started collecting vintage brochures that showed glamorous beaches and cruises (but never the malfunctioning toilets) Continue reading...

Guardian Culture · EN

‘I railed against the stereotype of the humourless lesbian’: the cheeky, feminist photography of Jill Posener

Her witty photos served as a rebuttal to 80s misogyny and Thatcherite conservatism. Now 50 years on, the photographer is receiving an overdue retrospective. ‘I loved that we could respond with humour,’ she says. If it were a lady it would get its bottom pinched. If this lady was a car she’d run you down.” These are the words that Jill Posener immortalised in November 1979, when she picked her way through traffic on London’s Farringdon Road to photograph something most would have overlooked: a graffitied billboard. The first sentence was there by design – a sexist attempt at wit intended to pro

Guardian Culture · EN

The space rocket I could have been aboard explodes: Rhiannon Adam’s best photograph

‘I was chosen to go around the Moon on a SpaceX starship. Preparations took over my life. Then, four minutes into watching a rocket on a test flight, it broke apart. And that was the end of my adventure’ This photograph was taken on 20 April 2023 from the VIP section of SpaceX’s launch viewing area, looking out from South Padre Island, Texas, towards Boca Chica, a nature reserve near the Mexican border which is home to SpaceX’s Starbase launchpad. In 2021, I and seven other civilians were selected from an open call to go around the Moon on a free SpaceX Starship flight funded by the Japanese b

Guardian Science · EN

‘An unsettling colonial collection’: should the Vatican return items ‘gifted’ to it from Indigenous peoples?

As Rome prepares to celebrate 400 years of St Peter’s Basilica, a prized collection of artefacts acquired by Catholic missionaries is staying out of the spotlight. We take a closer look In the four-hour queue to get into the Vatican Museums last week, everyone around me was fixed on seeing the Sistine Chapel. A couple of people mentioned the Raphael rooms, and someone else was looking forward to the classical sculpture of Apollo. But no one else was headed where I was going: the Anima Mundi, formerly the Ethnological Museum, home to around 80,000 objects from across the globe, many of which we

Guardian Culture · EN

‘Homosexuality was coined by a Hungarian’: the gay-sauna travelogue questioning central Europe’s illiberal image

A new book, With Wittgenstein in a Gay Sauna, reveals the deep-rooted queer subcultures in cities from Budapest to Prague – defying regional stereotypes and inspiring an art exhibition on masculinity The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that our understanding of reality is fundamentally bound by and shaped by the language we use to talk about it. But there is one place where the Vienna-born thinker’s argument ceases to make sense. “Gay saunas are spaces where language dies,” says Vratislav Maňák, a Czech writer and literary scholar. With Wittgenstein in a Gay Sauna, a book that made a ma

Guardian Culture · EN

Back of the net! Scotland’s historic salmon fishers – in pictures

Colin McPherson has spent three decades working on Catching the Tide, his moving portrayal of fishers and an old way of life that is dying out Continue reading...

Guardian Culture · EN

From Hendrix to Bowie: the trippiest music concert posters – in pictures

Günther Kieser is behind some of the most singular music poster designs of the 20th century. Inspired by sculpture, the free-form nature of jazz and psychedelic art, the German artist created works for David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix and Diana Ross and the Supremes, as well as mind-expanding designs for leading brands and art institutions. The exhibition Sculpting Sound: Günther Kieser’s Music Posters at New York’s Poster House gallery showcases his decades-spanning work and runs from 12 November to 11 April 2027. The show is accompanied by the first-ever English-language book on Kieser Continue rea

Guardian Culture · EN

‘Without storyboards, I feel like I’m in Grand Central station in my underwear’: film fights back against AI

As Hollywood begins to adopt the technology, the professionals in most direct jeopardy are the illustrators mapping out directors’ first visions. They sketch out what could be lost A film industry dominated by AI is a dystopian prospect: stories and dialogue generated by large language models, populated by reincarnated screen icons and uncanny humanoids . That is in the future, but the real-world impact of AI is already directly affecting jobs behind the scenes, as Hollywood’s biggest film-makers begin to adopt the technology. James Cameron – long an advocate for emerging technologies in film-

Guardian Culture · EN

Yabba dabba doo! Could these bulging, Flintstones-style towers be the future of eco-building?

Ruggedly good-looking and greener than bricks and concrete, Petra Heights are made of three-metre slabs of rough rock. Could they herald a new stone age? Our writer fires up his Flintmobile There’s been a geological eruption on London’s Finchley Road. Great chunks of pink basalt and igneous larvikite appear to have exploded from the railway cutting, shooting skywards to form teetering towers. Anyone trying to find Finchley Road & Frognal station need wonder no more: just look for the multistorey Stonehenge. Countless apartment towers have sprouted above London’s stations in recent years, a res

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‘It was hard coming after the shallow, egocentric YBAs’: brilliantly bolshie artist Ryan Gander lambasts practically everyone

He thinks painting is futile, the YBAs were an embarrassment, and most artists today might as well be working in carpet shops. So why is his new show full of, er, paintings? We meet the confounding British artist ‘This is so bad isn’t it?” says Ryan Gander, grinning like a naughty schoolboy. “People are going to hate me when you write this up.” The 50-year-old conceptual artist has just finished telling me why, not only does he dislike drawing or painting, he finds the very act “futile and dumb”. He explains: “Copying reality with a pencil and paper just seems completely mad to me. It’s such a

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One step beyond! Janette Beckman on her era-defining 2 Tone and ska images – in pictures

From the Specials and the Beat to Paul Weller and Sade, Janette Beckman’s glorious black and white photographs perfectly captured British music in the late 1970s and early 1980s Continue reading...

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Faceless workers and a tsunami of Post-it notes: the surreal world of Japan’s salarymen – in pictures

In his photographic series Ganbatte, Copenhagen-based Argentinian visual artist Jairo Alvarez explores the juxtaposition and harmony between Japan’s relentless work culture and its traditions, connection to nature and faith. The exhibition features as part of the Head On photo festival 2026 on the Bondi beach promenade from 6 to 29 November Stars and scars: the art of Atong Atem at the NGV – in pictures Continue reading...

Guardian Culture · EN

‘My father loved Duncan more than he loved us’: the 30-year passion at the heart of the Bloomsbury set – and the family raised in its image

As the work of Bloomsbury artist Duncan Grant features in a major exhibition, Cordelia Roche reflects on her father’s decades-long relationship with the painter – as friend, muse, but never lover After Duncan Grant died in our house, in Aldermaston in Berkshire, at the age of 93, I remember my father’s knees buckling and him falling to the ground. It was 1978, the end of their 32-year relationship, and the end of an era. My father Paul Roche, a poet, writer and translator of Greek plays, seemed to crumble before my eyes. He was 61, a father of five, and I was the youngest. Duncan, the painter,

Guardian Culture · EN

Identity, resilience and community: early Black portrait photography – in pictures

A new Washington DC exhibition aims to show how African Americans have used portrait photography to depict themselves, their communities, their aspirations and their identities. Titled Remember Me: Picturing African Americans in Early Photography , the exhibit at the National Gallery of Art features 70 works from the museum’s archives by African American photographers and portrait subjects, tracing the evolution of photography in Black communities. The show opens on 7 November and runs until 14 March 2027 Continue reading...

Guardian Culture · EN

Is that an explosion, an implosion or an orgasm? Pixies bass-player Emma Richardson’s realm-leaping life in painting

Huge, ecstatic canvases are just one of the vocations of the musician who joined the art rockers in 2024. As her show Hotwire My Heart opens, she talks terror, awe and teabags Emma Richardson loves to eavesdrop when people look at her paintings and talk about what they see in them. “They turn into these Rorschach inkblot tests,” she grins. Looking at her works, you do stand back in awe wondering. Is that a nebula, a god or a fleshy, baroque orgy? An explosion, an implosion or an orgasm? Richardson implies all of these and more, her paintbrush chasing in vivid oils the hedonism, desire and brea

Guardian Culture · EN

What did the Romans ever give Scotland? Heated floors, flashy sandals, sun gods – and a lot of nails

From steamy bathhouses to altars to Sol the sun god and leather shoes that still survive to this day, an eye-opening new exhibition chronicles Scotland under the Romans (before they fled) Inveresk is a handsome village near Edinburgh that sits above a curve of the little river Esk, not far from the mighty Firth of Forth. It is full of elegant 18th-century houses and an attractive kirk, dated 1805. To the casual observer, there is absolutely nothing Roman about it. And yet, in 2010, when the local cricket pavilion was being rebuilt, an extraordinary find was made – two altars made of local sand

Guardian Culture · EN

Mystical visions: strange sightings at Bristol photo festival – in pictures

From women floating across the shore to magical patches of Irish land, this year’s exhibitions are full of fantastic yet confounding photography Continue reading...

Guardian Culture · EN

‘I put a smoke bomb in a road cone and stuck it on my head’: Delton Barrett’s best photograph

‘It occurred to me that this image looked like someone losing their mind, going ballistic. I tried many shots and was getting tired. Looking back, it’s a wonder I survived’ I grew up on New Providence in the Bahamas, and still live on the south side of the island. After leaving school, I worked with my dad in construction, and that’s where I started taking photos. For the first couple of years, I used my flip phone, playing with images of nature and flowers on the sites we were working on, but in 2010 I bought my first DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera and started teaching myself about

Guardian Culture · EN

‘Jimi Horsedrix brought me so much joy’: the comic drawing a horse a day – and day 69’s is unsuitable for children

On day 58, he did a boxing Ali horse. On day 67, he did a howling horse. So what made Andy Field suddenly decide to draw 100 equines? And what made day 48’s so phallic? Andy Field was midway through his standup run at this year’s Edinburgh fringe when he was struck by an unusual urge – the urge to draw a horse. “I hadn’t sat down to draw anything since I was at school,” says the 34-year-old comedian. “Drawing was a skill I didn’t have.” He’s not lying. The subsequent horse Field posted to TikTok and Instagram was rather naive, with its four identical straight legs and cartoon eyeball. But the

Guardian Culture · EN

Can you tell a real Warhol from a fake? Four art exhibitions to see for free

A show of smart forgeries by Sturtevant will test your critical eye. Elsewhere, there’s a chance to dissect America’s cultural corpse and enter a terrifying immersive painting of Mexico Cady Noland’s US is a violent, celebrity obsessed, consumerist police state. In this small show of big, stark, awkwardly cropped and blurry black and white images and minimal sculptures, the influential American iconoclast is dissecting her country’s cultural detritus, and leaving its splayed corpse on display. Continue reading...

Guardian Culture · EN

‘May every data centre crumble to dust!’ How can we stop the tech bros, tyrants and tycoons? With quilts!

Taking aim at every modern malaise, anarchist artist CJ Reay is going viral with his witty, call-to-arms slogans on beautiful tapestries. Altogether now: ‘Tyrants of today will be the compost of tomorrow!’ CJ Reay quilted so hard all summer that now he needs glasses. “After four months of doing it, I found myself getting really bad headaches towards the end, so I had an eye test,” says Reay. “I totally ruined my summer!” If that sounds extreme, he had given himself a relatively extreme task: to produce 14 of his Anarchist Prayer Quilts, adapting the slogan-forward graphic poster work that has

Guardian Culture · EN

Roll with it! This year’s best portrait photography – in pictures

Dashing cowboys, a transgender storm chaser and a fetching mullet are among the subjects of these acclaimed photographs for the Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize 2026 Continue reading...

Guardian Culture · EN

Constantinople to Istanbul review – you won’t want to leave this lavish celebration of double imperial splendour

V&A, London Treasures from the two world-defining cultures that somehow coexisted in one mighty city keep on dazzling in this gorgeous, unmissable show Two empires compete to bewitch you in this exhibition that offers a double bubble of beauty. It collides the Byzantine empire, whose capital Constantinople was officially inaugurated on 11 May AD330, with the Ottoman Turks who conquered this great city in 1453 and turned it into Istanbul. The combined glories of two lost worlds – the Ottoman empire was dissolved in 1922 – beget an utterly enrapturing blockbuster. I lost all track of time in thi

Guardian Culture · EN