Art Monthly 493
February 2026

Contents

Christina Mackie, Powder People, 2018

Interview

Thought Trails

Christina Mackie interviewed by Chris Fite-Wassilak

If you are out in the world and you’re not living on the internet, then you’re constantly being fed with the random and the infinite variety of the world, you are being given opportunities by what you observe. You’re given a vision. What are you gonna do with it?

Finnegan Shannon, Do you want us here or not, 2018–

Feature

Sick at Art

Sophie J Williamson calls for collective, creative resistance to the capitalist-made conditions of exhaustion and slow death

It is not the cultivated slowness of wellness culture, nor a radical rest of liberation. It is something more inert, and perhaps more dangerous to capitalism’s sensibility: rest without promise. I am not accruing value; I am not ‘becoming’.

Carlos Leppe, The Singers, 1980

Feature

Art and Contested Memory

Bob Dickinson warns of the need to preserve collective memory against attempts by far-right regimes to erase it

Performance art had an important role in defying Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship because of its ability to sidestep censorship, and as such it features significantly in the country’s collective memory of the period.

Leah Clements, My Mouth Was Vibrating, 2022

Profile

Leah Clements

Tom Denman

Leah Clements’s commitment to access is pronounced in her use of alt (or alternative) text – the verbal description of images that assists the visually or aurally impaired – in which she is one of contemporary art’s most innovative practitioners.

Editorial

Happy Yennayer

The start of a new year usually brings optimism for the 12 months ahead, but as the world continues to appease the monstrous egos of our increasingly nihilistic world leaders there is little cause for cheer.

While Donald Trump has little or no interest in the arts, he is jealous of the Kennedy ‘Camelot’ myth and, in particular, of the charismatic JFK himself. Cue his move on the Arts Center that was named after the former Democrat president immediately after his assassination in 1964.

Artnotes

ACE Reviewed

Margaret Hodge’s long-awaited review of ACE makes a strong case for public support for the arts; the chancellor presents a budget weak on support for the arts; a study reveals the extent of UK museum closures under austerity; a report reveals the pressure lobbyist groups apply to arts organisations; plus the latest on galleries, people, prizes and more.

Obituaries

Alison Knowles 1933–2025
Karen Di Franco

Franco Vaccari 1936–2025
Martin Holman

Steve Kurtz 1958–2025
Nicola Triscott

Ceal Floyer 1968–2025
David Barrett

Sabrina Tirvengadum, Happy birthday to you, 2025, ‘I Still Dream of Lost Vocabularies’, Autograph APB, London

Exhibitions

I Still Dream of Lost Vocabularies

Autograph APB, London

Omar Kholeif

Seriously.

Sprüth Magers, London

Martin Herbert

Echo Delay Reverb: American Art, Francophone Thought

Palais de Tokyo, Paris

Ricardo Reverón Blanco

Lauren Gault: bone stone voice alone

DCA, Dundee

Evelyn Wh-ell

Harold Offeh: Mmm, Gotta Try a Little Harder, It Could Be Sweet

Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge

Kathryn Lloyd

Irma Hünerfauth

Arcadia Missa, London

Luisa Lorenza Corna

Uta Kögelsberger: Some Kind of Love – Actions and Reactions to Living on a Damaged Planet

Hatton Gallery, Newcastle

Maja and Reuben Fowkes

Joseph Yaeger: Polygrapher

Modern Art, London

Matthew Holman

At the Limits of the Gaze: Selected Writings by Takuma Nakahira

Books

At the Limits of the Gaze: Selected Writings by Takuma Nakahira

Jesse Cummings

Among its myriad merits, this newly published collection of writing by the legendary Japanese photographer Takuma Nakahira invites a reflection on the nature of influence and impact.

Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, all the things she said, 2025

Film

Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz: how we always survived

Erika Balsom

Chelsea Manning is certainly not best known as a DJ, yet here she takes the stage in twinkling kitten ears, playing jungle and hard house to an empty room, beginning with the song that gives the work its title, All the Things She Said.

Sammy Baloji, The Tree of Authenticity, 2025

Film

Sammy Baloji: The Tree of Authenticity

Chris Clarke

Sammy Baloji’s allusive, enigmatic approach juxtaposes vivid footage of his surroundings with historical documentation to both survey and speculate upon the Congo Basin’s past.

Cate Giordano, The Final Wife, 2025

Performance

Cate Giordano: The Final Wife

Mimi Howard

The American dream is both self-fulfilling prophecy and prophecy of ‘sell-fulfilment’. Often these get tangled together. David Koresh built his cult around the conviction that he was the second coming of Christ and that all women belonged to him.

Marietta Mavrokordatou, Bus Ride To The City 4, 2025

Reports

Letter from Turin

Chris McCormack

Turin remains indebted to its historical legacy, and its famed connections to the automobile industry, notably Fiat and Alfa Romeo; yet its active promotion of contemporary art continues to position it as a key cultural player in Italy.

‘Recast’, University of Copenhagen

Reports

Letter from Copenhagen

Frida Sandström

What happens when contemporary art reveals histories that have long been silenced? In Denmark, artistic research and anti-colonial thinking has gained an increasingly central place in contemporary art during the past decade, such that it was deemed a threat to the public by the Cultural Ministry.

DACS anniversary postcards

Artlaw

It Was 20 Years Ago …

Henry Lydiate

Since it was introduced in the UK in 2006, an estimated £156m has been distributed in Artist’s Resale Right royalties. The UK art market is currently ranked second globally, and ARR royalties represent about 0.1% of the UK market’s value.