FEATURES

Below is a selection of past features.

Wall of Silence

Anna Dezeuze on art and the climate of censorship that bedevils relations between the US, Israel and the Palestinians:
Former us president and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Jimmy Carter is one of the latest- and perhaps one of the unlikeliest - high-profile victims of the American Anti-Defamation League's attack on public figures who voice criticism of Israeli policies. Along with the lobby known as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and the Global Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, voted by Congress in 2004, the ADL has largely contributed to the climate of covert censorship and self-censorship that, for the last five years, has been plaguing American public debates over the relations between Israel and the US, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general.
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Dead Funny

Sally O'Reilly looks at comedy in contemporary art - with particular reference to the work of Simon Munnery, Paul McCarthy, Hendrik Pedersen and Bjarne Melgaard:
Comedy audiences disgruntled at not being made to laugh or the misplaced laughter at the death of Tommy Cooper remind one of the anthropologist Mary Douglas's well-worn definition of dirt as 'matter out of place'. It is a nice lick of language that comedy could be thought of as the new dirty pictures.
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Institutionalisation for all

Dave Beech tackles an old taboo
Institutionalisation in art is taboo. It is also rife. Art's institutions do not lag behind contemporary practice as they typically have since the emergence of modernism and the avant garde. Funding, retrospectives, sales, monographs, prizes, major public works, honours, professorships and trusteeships are not restricted to old-timers these days. Young art is welcomed without delay into art's established institutions at a time when contemporary art is growing as an industry, extending its pull on the tourist economy, increasing the popular recognition of its leading practitioners (now celebrities) and developing global brands.
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See related articles at Cornerhouse debate.

The Beastly Real

Images of the real maybe exploited but, claims Craig Burnett, the pictures themselves are innocent.
‘REAL PHOTOGRAPH’remains the unwritten label on the back of every press picture. The press depends on the popular longing for a photograph that seems to offer a portal to an actual event, a way to experience the jolt of disaster or the sentiment of a remarkable incident. Naturally, this idea is tangled in a quagmire of issues about authorship, editing, context and reception.
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See related articles at Camden debate.

Art's Debunkers

Dave Beech goes head to head with Julian Stallabrass over the arguments Stallabrass puts forward in his new book Art Incorporated, The Story of Contemporary Art.
Here we find the debunker's full range of complaints. Artists are either cynical or niave, curators are calculating, dealers, sponsors and collectors follow the money, art writers are largely academic, and the political support of culture is a threat to art itself.
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See related articles at Whitechapel debate.

Crisis What Crisis?

Michael Archer on art criticism.
There is no crisis. What is there needs to be looked at. It can't be pushed away pending the appearance of something more wholesome and palatable.
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Brand Art

Vincent Pecoil on art after Warhol.

Not so long ago, to claim that business was the highest form of art, as Andy Warhol did, was regarded as a provocation. But today it appears that actually art has since become the highest form of business - the model for a new consumer society.
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Live and Kicking

Extremist, self-indulgent and uncool it may be but live art also offers new possibilities for politically engaged art argues Sally O'Reilly.
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