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Art Monthly Magazine
Fiercely independent since 1976
Contents
Issue 491 November 2025
Suzanne Treister, Q. Would You Recognise a Virtual Paradise?, from the series ‘Fictional Video Game Stills’, 1991–92
Interview
Time Travel
Suzanne Treister interviewed by Jamie Sutcliffe
Let’s take a wider perspective and assert that all art by default creates a crack in consensus reality, that on one level or another all art is visionary, all art is political, all art is mystical, all art is about identity, all art is holographic and so on.
Lisa Slominski asks whether it is possible to contextualise difference with care and without instrumentalising it
Nnena Kalu’s nomination for this year’s Turner Prize raises important questions about ethics, interpretation and responsibility, and invites broader reflection on how representation is negotiated.
Abbas and Yasiin Zahedi, Magnetic Sun, 2022, installed at Springfield University Hospital
Feature
Art Treatment
Tom Denman assesses what it takes to make art in and for hospitals, concluding that the best approach encourages an ‘interdependent therapeutic gaze’
The question is, how can the therapeutic gaze be harnessed to upset the top-down, objectifying dynamic we might associate with medical practice, including the wider neoliberalist framework of arts in health advocacy?
Luc Delahaye, L’Autre, 1995–97
Feature
Re-de-photography
Mark Prince argues that in our social media saturated culture, to photograph or film something is becoming a substitute for that same experience
The paradox reflects photography’s conflicted role in a mediated world – rife with image manipulation – as both the medium that most effectively dissembles its form in order to simply attest, and the one most likely to deceive with its evidential appearance.
From the Back Catalogue Photography as Work
Stephanie Schwartz questions the utopian potential of digital photography. First published in 2011, now free online.
Grant Mooney, Deisal c. i, ii, 2024
Profile
Grant Mooney
Francis Whorrall-Campbell
The removal of the Chisenhale’s windows is enough to enact changes, not only to bodies that pass through the building, but also to the objects the artist has placed in the gallery. Over the course of the exhibition, the volatile currents of air and moisture slowly cause the works’ surfaces to oxidise.
sponsored
Editorial
Raising Ghosts
Keir Starmer’s Labour government is haunted by the ghosts of triple election-winner Tony Blair and his New Labour agenda that, contrary to myth, not only ended in failure but also paved the way for many of the problems we’re facing today – resurrection is not the answer.
Imagine refusing to show your future digital ID to the police, armed as they are not just with tear gas and tasers but with SOCPA (the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005), whose powers allow police to search and arrest you without charge. Daniel Ward’s documentary, Lonesome Ghosts, serves as a reminder of the ease with which police powers – of surveillance and undercover work in this case – can be abused.
sponsored
Artnotes
Ire at Fireworks
Cai Guo-Qiang’s White Cube exhibition draws protests; the NEA’s interpretation of Donald Trump’s orders have been ruled unlawful; M HKA’s future is cast into doubt; the Met is the unwitting host of a guerrilla AR exhibition; the British Museum gala ball is disrupted by protesters; plus the latest on galleries, people, awards and more.
William E Jones, The Fall of Communism as Seen in …, 1998, ‘On the Origins of the 21st Century or …’, Kunstverein in Hamburg
Exhibitions
Kerry James Marshall: The Histories
Royal Academy, London
Larne Abse Gogarty
Tanoa Sasraku: Morale Patch
ICA, London
Michael Archer
Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Prisoners of Love – Until the Sun of Freedom
Nottingham Contemporary
Cherry Smyth
sponsored
Joyce Joumaa: Prologue
Brunette Coleman, London
Amrita Dhallu
Christopher Williams: Hand Painted Signs, Photographs, Long Play Vinyl, Audiophile Bar, Printed Matter
The Perimeter, London
Duncan Wooldridge
sponsored
Ketty La Rocca: you you
Estorick, London
Martin Holman
On the Origins of the 21st Century or …
Kunstverein in Hamburg
Chris McCormack
Sixties Surreal
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Ravi Ghosh
Hito Steyerl, Medium Hot
Books
Hito Steyerl: Medium Hot – Images in the Age of Heat
George Vasey
The book convenes a series of essays exploring generative AI at a brittle moment of global politics and climate emergency. It is a typically dense yet readable book that chronicles Hito Steyerl’s grappling with almost-weekly technological advancements.
Daniel Ward, Lonesome Ghosts, 2025
Film
Daniel Ward: Lonesome Ghosts
Peter Suchin
Part of Daniel Ward’s vigilance with respect to film’s manufactured form is his direct examination of the use of photography by specially trained police officers carrying out detailed surveillance operations on left-wing protest groups in the 1970s and 1980s.
Margaret Salmon, ‘Assembly’
Film
Margaret Salmon: Assembly
Maria Walsh
Rather than being a critique of documentary or observational film, these self-reflexive moments give the viewer the time and the room to feel their way into the unfolding of an encounter.
‘Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity As Practice’
Reports
Letter from São Paulo
Juan José Santos
The surge of Indigenous art has gained momentum over the past year, and while its visibility within institutional calendars remains significant, a rift is emerging between spaces that exoticise or commodify this art and those that entrust Indigenous communities themselves to curate, emphasising not the ancestral or tribal but the contemporary and hybrid.
Liliana Porter, Red Sand, 2018
Reports
Letter from Buenos Aires
Bob Dickinson
Signs put up by workers operating the rest of the site of remembrance still proudly announce: ‘IN A BROKEN STATE, WE ARE HOLDING IT TOGETHER.’
Chris Ofili, Blossom, 1997, estimate £1–1.5m, sold for £2.1m
Salerooms
London Revival
Colin Gleadell
Best performer in relation to estimate was Gary Hume’s portrait Funny Girl, 1995, bought like much else in the collection from White Cube, which soared over a timid £15,000 estimate to sell for £82,500 – nowhere near a record, but one of the better prices for Hume in recent years.
Fall of Freedom at the No Kings march in New York, October 2025, photo Daniel Bejar
Artlaw
Fall of Freedom
Henry Lydiate
Dread Scott had previously aroused controversy with his exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?, 1988. The work, which consists of a US flag laid on the floor before a wall-mounted silver gelatin print and a shelf with books and pens, invites audience members to participate by standing on the flag to reach the shelf and read/use the books and pens.
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Art Monthly x Liam Gillick
TAKING ART APART SINCE 1976
To celebrate Art Monthly’s 50th anniversary in 2026, Liam Gillick has produced a cap design to support the magazine’s fundraising campaign.
• 100% cotton
• One-size, adjustable
• £39 including UK delivery
Oreet Ashery’s Piece, 2025, modelled by Onyeka Igwe
Art Monthly x Oreet Ashery
PIECE
To celebrate Art Monthly’s 50th anniversary in 2026, Oreet Ashery has produced a T-shirt to support the magazine’s fundraising campaign.
• Limited edition of 30
• Organic white cotton
• One-size
• Introductory price £39 including UK delivery
Each T-shirt is supplied with a separate printed poem signed by the artist, which includes the lines:
Piece by piece
No Justice, No Peace
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Always Coming Home: ACT III, IV – A Hole in the Air + Stone Telling Camden Art Centre, London, Sat 15 & Sun 16 Nov 7.00pm Join us for speculative fiction and deep listening events. A-Z presents a series of evenings including performance, live sets and moving image.
promoted
What the Serpent Told Me in the Misty Gloom: Performance by Martin O’Brien Tate Britain, London, Sat 15 Nov 7.30pm
ESEA Futures: Finissage Party Bloc Projects, Sheffield, Sat 15 Nov 8.30pm
Story and Vision: Wonders of Creation with Dr Ladan Akbarnia Courtauld Institute, London, Wed 19 Nov 5.30pm
The Frederick Douglass Festival Presents a Reading of Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman Wexford Arts Centre, Wexford, Thu 20 Nov 7.00pm
Selected Exhibition Openings
Roots in the Sky HOME , Manchester, 11 Oct - 25 Jan Roots in the Sky curated by Tunji Adeniyi-Jones presents new and recent works by ten contemporary artists whose practices span the United States, Europe, and West Africa.
promoted
Listening to the Voices of the Rivers Newcastle Contemporary Art, Newcastle, opens Thu 30 Oct | PV 29 Oct
Bruce Timson Penwith Gallery, Saint Ives, opens Fri 31 Oct | PV 31 Oct
It Requires Getting Lost Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, opens Sat 1 Nov | PV 30 Oct
Reverie Tarpey Gallery, Castle Donington, opens Sat 8 Nov | PV 8 Nov
Just Browsing The Bluecoat, Liverpool, 25 Oct - 8 Feb This group exhibition features 11 artists and offers an experience of art that can be touched, worn and bought to take home.
promoted
Terse Inspection Pit, East Harting, opens Sat 8 Nov | PV 7 Nov
Betsy Bradley Seventeen, London, opens Fri 14 Nov | PV 13 Nov
Graham Silveria Martin Sid Motion Gallery, London, opens Fri 14 Nov | PV 13 Nov
Lianne Morgan Elysium Gallery, Swansea, opens Fri 14 Nov | PV 14 Nov
We Dream of Our Freedom by Lou Miller The Bluecoat , Liverpool, 25 Oct - 8 Feb Artist and activist Lou Miller has worked with school children from Liverpool to explore their vision of freedom for this interactive exhibition.
promoted
Sarah Ryder Phoenix, Exeter, opens Tue 15 Nov | PV 15 Nov
Tony Cragg Lisson Gallery, London, opens Wed 19 Nov | PV 18 Nov
Seed_2065 The Handbag Factory, London, 5 Dec - 15 Dec | PV 4 Dec & 15 Dec 6-9pm What happens when humans step aside and other species thrive? 21 artists imagine hopeful futures rooted in harmony with the more-than-human, while reflecting on our dystopian present.
Find local shows with the Art Monthly gallery maps!
Podcasts
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Sep: Lillian Wilkie reports on the art scene in Barnsley; Dave Beech explains the lack of discourse around working-class culture in the art world. Hosted by Matt Hale.
Jul: Morgan Falconer asks whether contemporary art is in decline and, if so, why; Tom Denman wonders why there is deafening silence in the art world as the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki looms. Hosted by Matt Hale.
Jun: Morgan Quaintance analyses the absence of discussion of working-class lives in the arts, and the cultural influence of the middle class in how such lives are understood. Hosted by Chris McCormack.
Open call for artists to design external panels of International Slavery Museum’s entrance pavilion
£30,000 commission for a permanent work in iron at International Slavery Museum, reopening 2029. Coproduction with community required. International Slavery Museum, Liverpool | Apply 13 October - 17 November 2025 liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/pavilion
promoted
Creation of Pop-up Art for East Riding-Wide Treasure Hunt
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