Ima-Abasi Okon, ‘Incorporeal hereditaments like Love [can] Set(s) You Free, according to Kelly, Case, Dru Hill, Kandice, LovHer, Montel and Playa with 50 - 60g of –D,)e,l,a,y,e,d1;—O,)n,s,e,t2;— ;[heart];M,)u,s,c,l,e3;[heart];—S,)o,r,e,n,e,s,s4;’, 2025
Interview
Horizon Lines
Ima-Abasi Okon interviewed by Polly Staple
I was interested in the idea of a finish line or a starting line not being linear and someone having many starts and many finishes, an alternative sense of growth and moving at one’s own pace. Competition stifles relationships and how we engage with each other.
Sammy Baloji, Shinkolobwe’s Abstraction, 2022
Feature
Atomic Legacies
As the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki looms, Tom Denman wonders why there is deafening silence in the art world.
Although there are a number of artists engaging with the legacies of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the UK’s curatorial and institutional interest in the topic is slight, which is alarming to say the least.
From the Back Catalogue Representing Destruction
Matthew Bowman considers the role of archives in recording the destruction of art. First published in 2021, now free online.
Urs Fischer, You, 2007
Feature
Art in Decline
When both conservatives and liberals bemoan the state of culture in general, is it time, wonders Morgan Falconer, to ask whether contemporary art is in decline – and, if so, why?
If we were to look for a single market mechanism in the art world that has had an outsize impact over the past 20 years – something we might provisionally put alongside the advent of Spotify or Netflix or Amazon in different spheres – it is surely the proliferation of art fairs.
Victor Burgin, Parzival, 2013
Feature
Victor Burgin in Conversation
Chris Townsend talks to Victor Burgin
It was writing that led me to photography as a form of representation that was democratic, that was not intimidating to an audience in the way that a painting can be. Also, my working-class origins played a part here. I was feeling increasingly alienated from this bourgeois art world in which I had landed.
Diamond Stingily, May 29, 2025
Profile
Diamond Stingily
Amrita Dhallu
The descent from the reception desk towards the installation feels closer to a choreographed executionary march as we are seemingly ushered towards the guillotine. We become more attuned to the physicality of our own bodies, as if this is a rehearsal for our own fate.
sponsored
Editorial
MOAH, MOSH, MOP
It is beyond satire that Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed ‘president for peace’, should be the first Commander in Chief to order the combat use of the massive GBU-57 bomb, dropping 14 of them on Iran’s nuclear facilities just as Japan prepared to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the devastation it suffered when the US dropped atomic bombs in anger for the first and, so far, only time. But in an era when Hershey sweets have been branded ‘unsafe to eat’ because of carcinogenic additives and children in Gaza are forcibly starved, the terrifying truth is stranger than any dark parody.
The relentless pursuit of the bottom line in business is as American as apple pie, so it should come as no surprise that even children are not protected from the all-out drive for profit.
sponsored
Artnotes
Negative Review
The government’s Spending Review is bad news for the arts; arts organisations bemoan negativity around corporate sponsorship; the British Museum hosts Israel’s ‘Independence Day’ celebrations; the Science Museum is the subject of a school boycott; the Whitney Museum censors work at its Independent Study Program, sacks the director and cancels the whole initiative; plus the latest on galleries, people, awards and more.
Emma Critchley, Soundings, 2024, Tate St Ives
Exhibitions
Liverpool Biennial: Bedrock
various venues
Sarah E James
Ed Atkins
Tate Britain, London
George MacBeth
The Gatherers
MoMA PS1, New York
Ravi Ghosh
Kasra Jalilipour: Gut Feelings 2.0
Grand Union, Birmingham
Cherry Smyth
sponsored
Myths of the new future
Common Guild, Glasgow
Akshi Singh
Donald Locke: Resistant Forms
Spike Island, Bristol
Amna Malik
Wolfgang Tillmans: Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us
Pompidou Centre, Paris
Daniel Ward
Emma Critchley: Soundings
Tate St Ives
Paul Carey-Kent
London Round-up
Sadie Coles HQ • The Approach • Phillida Reid
Tendai Mutambu
Hope Strickland, A River Holds a Perfect Memory, 2024
Film
15th Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival
Vaishna Surjid
The directors of this year’s festival situate it within our ever-worsening global crises – ‘the world burns’, they conclude. I concur. Each programme contained themes of climate crisis, labour and late capitalism, the loss of land and culture, and the afterlives of empire.
Jaki Irvine, SHWO EM THE WAY OT GO HMOE, 2025
Performance
Jaki Irvine: SHWO EM TEH WAY OT GO HMOE
Maria Walsh
Inspired by the 1925 sea shanty ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’, this sampling and layering of her films provided a live score improvised by five jazz musicians engaged by the artist. Foregrounding the nonlinearity of improvisation, the audience was only allowed into the dimly lit auditorium just after the performance had already begun. The overall tenor was dark.
Gaza Solidarity Encampment, Columbia University, New York, 2024
Report
Why are universities so easy to break?
Amelia Jones
In US universities, presidents and provosts – who used to be active academics deeply connected to faculties – are now yes men and women, whose interests are aligned with those of wealthy businesspeople on boards of trustees.
Joe Namy, Until this Elegy Ends, 2024
Report
Letter from Amman
Mark Sheerin
Working with the materials they have to hand, they document the many overcrowded camps in the territory. While all stylistically different, the four artists conveyed fragility and resilience, made powerfully affecting by their proximity to mortal danger.
Meleanna Aluli Meyer, Umeke La’au, 2025
Report
Letter from Honolulu
Elisa Adami
An audio-piece recites the names of 38,000 Hawaiians – including Meleanna Aluli Meyer’s then 17-year-old grandfather – who signed the 1897 Ku‘e petitions against the illegitimate annexation of Hawai‘i by the US. Again, resurgence and refusal go hand in hand.
an artwork by the Belgian painter Christian Silvain in 1990, and a work made by the Chinese painter Ye Yongqing in 1994
Artlaw
Lost in Translation
Henry Lydiate
Plagiarism and copyright infringement are often misunderstood as being the same, but they are not: they may overlap, but they are separate wrongs. Plagiarism is a violation of ethical norms and policies through the appropriation of another’s original work as one’s own without acknowledging the work of the original author. Copyright infringement is an unlawful violation of an author’s exclusive intellectual property rights to control use of their original work.
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Fears and Familiars: Talk on the Art of Hamad Butt Whitechapel Gallery, London, Thu 24 Jul 6.30pm
20/20 Reflections: Zoë Zo, Zoë Tumika and Zoë Guthrie Talk Chelsea Space, London, Thu 24 Jul 6.30pm
Emma Critchley: Soundings Performance Tate St Ives, Saint Ives, Sat 26 Jul 10.30am
Social: Neighbourhood Crowd G39, Cardiff, Sat 26 Jul 11.00am
Primal Hum: Workshop in Improvisation for Women and Non-Binary People Listen Gallery, Glasgow, Sat 26 Jul 12.00pm
Lughnasadh Music & Art Festival Forgan Arts Centre, Newport-on-Tay, Sat 2 Aug 2.00pm
Raven Chacon: Voiceless Mass Performance The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 9 Aug 6.16pm
Feed Your Mind: Curator’s Talk and Tour Impressions, Bradford, Thu 14 Aug 12.30pm
Late Programme Inspired by Pakeezah Whitechapel Gallery, London, Thu 14 Aug 6.00pm
Eve Stainton: The Joystick and The Reins (World Premiere) Bold Tendencies, London, Thu 14 Aug 7.30pm
Switched-On Bach: Virtuoso Electronic Performances of Wendy Carlos Bold Tendencies, London, Fri 5 Sep 7.30pm
Selected Exhibition Openings
Manifesto for Sustainable Experimentation Beaconsfield, London, until Sat 9 Aug BAW, Sonia Boyce, David Burrows, Michael Curran, Luana Duvoisin Zanchi, Minna Haukka, Trevor Mathison, Emily Mulenga, Ellis Parkinson, A.L. Steiner, Luke Turner, Joseph Walsh and many others celebrate 30 years of Beaconsfield, 1995-2025.
Find local shows with the Art Monthly gallery maps!
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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.
May: Rachel Pronger discusses the work of Vaginal Davis at the Gropius Bau, Peter Suchin covers Barbara Steveni’s work at Modern Art Oxford, Henry Broome looks at the troubled history between art and gentrification and Elizabeth Fullerton reports on the art scene in Tallinn.
Apr: Maja and Reuben Fowkes discuss the lessons we may learn from trees, and how artists can be their voice in this Pyrocene age.
The Eleventh Edition of the International Award for Art Criticism
Entrants are required to submit a piece of critical writing about any contemporary art exhibition held anywhere in the world or on-line between 1st September 2024 and 31st August 2025, for a chance of winning one of four prizes totalling over 20k euros. IAAC, Royal College of Art, Edinburgh College of Art, AICA, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiushi Art Museum | 14 Sept iaac-m21.com
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