Arts news

• Theaster Gates: ‘I’m an artist. It’s my job to wake things up’

  25-01-2025 16:00
  
  In the week of Donald Trump’s inauguration, the US artist is in the UK with a show drawing on the legacy of Malcolm X – and an alternative vision for making America great againWhen you are in this line of work, a question people sometimes ask is: “Of all the people you have interviewed and written about, who was the most inspiring?” And when they do, my memory often goes back to a day I spent 10 years ago driving around the south side of Chicago with the radical potter, a
  
  Read more

• On my radar: Alison Goldfrapp’s cultural highlights

  25-01-2025 16:00
  
  The electropop star on her favourite quirky bookshop, Marmite and cheese pastries and the second series of Severance Alison Goldfrapp was born in Enfield, north London, in 1966 and raised in Hampshire. She began making music at art school and contributed vocals to tracks by Orbital and Tricky. In 1999, she formed Goldfrapp with composer Will Gregory. The electropop duo made seven albums together, including 2005’s million-selling Supernature, before going on hiatus. In 2023 Goldfrapp, who l
  
  Read more

• ‘I was overwhelmed by the sweetness of it’: Dotun Ajoa aka McAwhy’s best phone picture

  25-01-2025 11:00
  
  The photographer captures the moment his three-year-old son found him napping and decided to join himDotun Ajao had been juggling a typical Saturday of errands, chores and caring for his three-year-old son, Ireyao. The tired dad had snuck off for a nap when Ireyao found him, and, instead of asking for a snack or to play as he usually would, the toddler quietly climbed into bed and used his father’s head as a pillow.“I was overwhelmed by the sweetness of it,” says the Lagos
  
  Read more

• ‘I was overwhelmed by the sweetness of it’: Dotun Ajao aka McAwhy’s best phone picture

  25-01-2025 11:00
  The photographer captures the moment his three-year-old son found him napping and decided to join himDotun Ajao had been juggling a typical Saturday of errands, chores and caring for his three-year-old son, Ireyao. The tired dad had snuck off for a nap when Ireyao found him, and, instead of asking for a snack or to play as he usually would, the toddler quietly climbed into bed and used his father’s head as a pillow.“I was overwhelmed by the sweetness of it,” says the Lagos
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• From The Brutalist to FKA twigs: a complete guide to this week’s entertainment in the UK

  25-01-2025 07:00
  
  Brady Corbet’s Oscar-tipped period drama mingles war and architecture, while the art-popster aims for sensual wellness with her new albumThe Brutalist
  Out nowArchitect László Toth (Adrien Brody) flees postwar Europe and sets up in Pennsylvania, where he attempts to piece his life back together. Guy Pearce plays the rich industrialist who recognises Toth’s talent; Felicity Jones is his estranged wife. Hotly tipped epic, directed by Brady Corbet (Childhood of a Leader, Vo
  
  Read more

• Carl Bloch’s lost masterpiece Prometheus Unbound finds fame again in Athens

  25-01-2025 06:00
  
  Work that made its creator a superstar then mysteriously disappeared is mesmerising art lovers once moreIt was commissioned by a Greek king, made its creator a superstar and in his native Denmark attracted crowds like no other painting before. Then it mysteriously disappeared.Now, nearly nine decades after it was last seen gracing the stairwell of the royal palace that would become the Athens parliament, Carl Bloch’s masterpiece, Prometheus Unbound, has found fame again in Greece. Continue
  
  Read more

• British Council could disappear within a decade, says chief executive

  25-01-2025 06:00
  
  Exclusive: Scott McDonald is looking at budget cuts and axing the organisation’s presence in up to 40 countries• Why the financial crisis at the British Council matters as UK pushes soft powerThe British Council could “disappear” within a decade, harming the UK’s global status and leaving an international vacuum to be filled by Russia and China, unless the government acts to save it, according to the council’s leader.Scott McDonald, the British Council’s
  
  Read more

Follow @ArtsUK1 on Twitter!