DALE BERNING SAWA
Journalist, writer, editor
This will sound incongruous to anyone who’s sat through a Theresa May press conference, but Saied Dai says they played a lot to find the right pose for her portrait. He decided early on that she should stand – “she’s very stylish, statuesque” – and though he’d asked that she bring clothing options, he opted for vintage pieces belonging to his wife to achieve the sculptural silhouette he needed. The Guardian
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Sophie Taeuber-Arp survey reveals the dizzying range of work by the Swiss artist The Guardian
The major travelling exhibition opens at the Kunstmuseum Basel before travelling to London's Tate Modern and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Read here
Lucy Raven on Land Art and the Western frontierThe Art Newspaper
New York-based artist's exhibitions opens at Dia Art Foundation's new and improved space in New York. Read here
Mohamed Bourouissa on France’s identity crisis: ‘We’ve got catching up to do!’ The Guardian
The French Algerian artist uses photography, rap music and the frequencies of trees to shine a light on marginalised communities. Read here
How Lockdown Allowed London’s Local Neighbourhoods to Shine Elephant Magazine
Artists have long celebrated the quiet joy of the city and its local communities, telling a story of political upheaval, power and transformation. Read here
Pixy Liao's best photograph: eating a papaya off my boyfriend's crotch The Guardian
‘There was this trend of eating sushi from a woman’s naked body. So when I found the perfect papaya, I knew exactly how to shoot it’. Read here
Andreas Gursky on the photograph that changed everything: 'It was pure intuition' The Guardian
It went against all he had been taught. But this image of Salerno harbour was a turning point for the great photographer, paving the way to his epic landscapes. Read here
Watch the throne: why artist Thierry Oussou faked an archaeological dig The Guardian
When archaeology students unearthed a royal throne in Benin they were astonished. But it was actually a replica, planted to make a statement about the colonial looting of African art. Read more here
Hicham Benohoud on the boy with the cardboard feet The Guardian
‘I was bored teaching art in Marrakech, so I started taking photographs of my students instead’. Read here
Yto Barrada's best photograph: the prawn factory where women can't talk The Guardian
‘The women peel prawns all day while a big tube pumps in cold air, making a deafening noise. They get few breaks and a manager walks up and down telling them to get back to work’. Read here
Unfamiliar territory: artists navigate the complexities of the refugee crisis The Guardian
From Shahpour Pouyan’s creative reappraisal of Persian miniatures to Bissane al Charif’s exploration of the memories of Syrian refugees, artists are using their work to highlight the human dimension of the refugee crisis. Read here
When I was 15, my father bought a book about Frank Auerbach. It was the art critic Robert Hughes's acclaimed 1990 monograph and I drew from it incessantly. Years later, I bought my own copy. Opening it to the portrait of EOW on page 137 I found myself overcome, expecting it to be as smudged as I'd left my father's. Auerbach's works taught me how to see and how to draw. The Guardian
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Bourse de Commerce: opening of Pinault's long-awaited Paris museum is—pandemic permitting—finally around the corner The Art Newspaper
Two decades since the billionaire started planning a home for his collection in the French capital, the spectacular space opens in 2021. Read here
Black images matter: Shade, the powerful podcast unpicking the tumult of 2020 The Guardian
Lou Mensah explains why the new season of her podcast about art, race and identity examines the defining images of 2020 and beyond, from BLM protests to Vogue covers and Trump supporters. Read here
‘My parents’ trauma is my trauma’ – Veronica Ryan on making first Windrush monument The Guardian
With a solo show, a commission to make UK’s first Windrush monument and an OBE, the British artist has stepped out of the shadows. Read here
Marking Time: Art in the Era of Mass Incarceration, MoMA PS1 The Art Newspaper
Exhibition in New York will include works made by those who are part of—or who have ties to—the largest prison population in the world. Read here
Engineer, Agitator, Constructor: the Artist Reinvented, MoMA The Art Newspaper
The works on paper from the Merrill C. Berman Collection include designs for Communist posters and salad oil advertisements. Read here
'Tech CEOs are like cult leaders' – the artists taking on Facebook and big data The Guardian
Langlands and Bell are celebrating their 40th year together – by taking an uncompromising look at Silicon Valley’s utopian promises. Read more here
Marcel Duchamp: the Barbara and Aaron Levine Collection, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Art Newspaper
Readymades, miniature reproductions, collaborations with Man Ray, and games of chess to feature in new show. Read here
An-My Lê on her Silent General (Fragment II) series The Guardian
‘It’s a response to the school shootings’. Read here
The Atlas des régions naturelles: France as you've never seen her before The Guardian
They set out to capture the forgotten France, the everyday architecture of emptied towns and overlooked villages – before their uniqueness is lost for ever. Eric Tabuchi and Nelly Monnier talk us through their vast photographic atlas. Read more here
Our lost world in watercolours – the paintings that documented Earth The Guardian
A new website is digitising millions of watercolours – to make instantly available a wealth of vital historic imagery that could assist everything from climate research to school teachers. Read more here
The sounds of someone cooking. A grandmother saying grace at the table. The hubbub of a city square alive with street musicians and polyglot crowds. Quite what being on the move sounds like—not being where you were; living elsewhere than where you're from—is the subject of a new open call for sound recordings from art project Cities and Memory The Art Newspaper
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Phyllida Barlow was that teacher. That person that if you’d had her in primary school, now, at 46, you’d still think of her as Miss Barlow, but you had her at art school, and so 20, 30, 40 years on into a lifelong battle with artmaking – or writing, or parenting, or just being a decent human – you’re still striving to make something she’d rate. The Guardian
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Tunnel visionary: why was land artist Nancy Holt never given her due? The Guardian
Holt made mesmerising works that filtered stars and vanished in the desert heat. But land art was seen as a male preserve. A new exhibition redresses the balance. Read here
Slowing the news: artists commissioned to document a US election year through the act of drawing The Art Newspaper
The final part of an exhibition, delayed by the unprecedented events of 2020, opens at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Read here
A happy baby on a train: Dina Alfasi’s best phone picture The Guardian
‘That the young girl in the foreground was a soldier with a gun on her knee is an integral part of that moment’ Read here
We Will Walk, Turner Contemporary The Art Newspaper
America's Deep South heads to the UK’s south coast for remarkable exhibition. Read here
Kissing cowboys: the queer
rodeo stars bucking a macho
American tradition The Guardian
Photographer Luke Gilford could not believe his eyes when he first stumbled across a gay rodeo. He set about capturing the joyous, tender, authentic world he saw there. Read more here
Back in the frame: the extraordinary artists Britain forgot Inside Design
Combing through musty studios and garrets has become a way of life for specialists Liss Llewellyn, whose Hidden Gems exhibition lays bare museum-grade works that have fallen into oblivion – more often than not by women. Read more here
Dissecting a gallery in the new MoMA The Art Newspaper
Among the most striking examples of the museum's more global and inclusive approach is a gallery with the theme War Within, War Without. Read here
Why Tarek Atoui's new collection of musical instruments is striking an unfamiliar chord The Guardian
It’s an instrument - but how do you play it and what does it sound like? The discovery of a stash of obscure instruments has inspired a performance artwork at Tate Modern – Dale Berning Sawa took part. Read here
When did just looking at art lose its appeal? The Art Newspaper
Sleep in Hopper’s motel room or dive into Monet’s pond—museums are increasingly going beyond traditional exhibition formats to attract visitors.
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