Arts news

• ‘Mental illness is not a joke’: London gallery under fire for Van Gogh gifts

  13-02-2022 15:46
  
  Souvenirs at Courtauld Gallery exhibition include ‘emotional first aid kit’ and ear-shaped eraserVincent van Gogh is perhaps equally famous for his sunflowers and his act of self-mutilation. Apart from his paintings, when people think of the artist, they also think of his ear – or lack of it.But references to Van Gogh’s missing ear, and mental health, in souvenirs on sale at the Courtauld Gallery in London have attracted criticism.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be
  
  Read more

• Louise Bourgeois: The Woven Child review – everyday horror shows that reel you in

  13-02-2022 14:00
  
  Hayward Gallery, London
  Strange, horrific, eerie, beautiful, this huge survey of works from the last two decades of Bourgeois’s long life reveals an artist who both embraced and disdained the female realmFor the visitor, the Hayward Gallery’s extraordinary new exhibition of the late work of the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois is a major undertaking. Thanks both to its size – the show gathers together some 90 collages, sculptures and installations, many of which have nev
  
  Read more

• It’s not our job to flatter the vanity of the famous. So meet my Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat | Anthony McCarten

  13-02-2022 08:30
  
  As his new play opens, the eminent writer on where documentary ends and drama beginsI still own a painting that I purchased at a flea market in Los Angeles in 1993. I got it cheap; $25 and it was in the back of my clapped-out convertible . It turned out to be a copy of Bronzino’s Portrait of a Young Man with a Book. In 16th-century Florence, if you wanted your portrait painted then he was your man, for one simple reason: he made you look great. His particular gift – and shrewd commer
  
  Read more

Follow @ArtsUK1 on Twitter!