Arts news

• William Kentridge review – never ceases to mesmerise

  25-09-2022 14:00
  Royal Academy, London
  The spectres of oppression and its victims in his country and beyond are conjured by the South African artist William Kentridge in an epic show spanning 40 yearsThere is a bottomless black hole in the Royal Academy’s colossal survey of South African artist William Kentridge. It appears on screen, a seething, gaping disc that circles and swirls, occasionally flecked with a dot of light to indicate some endless passage downwards. It is nothing more than an animated draw
  
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• Fifty years and $500m: the happy business of the smiley symbol

  25-09-2022 12:00
  The smiley face has been co-opted by ravers, artists and fashion for decades. So how does the company that owns it keep it relevant?Nicolas Loufrani, CEO of the Smiley Company, has sharp features, and a sharper grin. I find him in his London office wearing grey pin-striped dungarees, beaming energetically, clutching a poster that says: “Take the time to smile.” Around him, the room fizzes with iterations of the icon – you know the one. Fluorescent lights in the shape of that un
  
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• Cleaners at Amsterdam gallery ordered to let insects run wild in name of art

  25-09-2022 10:00
  Spiders and creepy crawlies allowed to colonise Rijksmuseum to show how perceptions have changed through the agesNo vacuum cleaners and no feather dusters: that’s the order that has gone out to cleaning staff at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.As part of an exhibition exploring the changing perceptions of creepy-crawlies in art and science through the ages, the national museum of the Netherlands has been allowing its crevices and corners to go wild for the last three months. Continue reading.
  
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