When the Fitzwilliam’s rehang of five of its main rooms was unveiled in March, the Observer ran the story under the headline ‘“Inclusivity shouldn’t be controversial”: will a radical art rehang give Cambridge an unwanted “woke” row?’ Within a few hours, under the headline ‘Fitzwilliam Museum’s inclusive rehang “not woke”’, the Telegraph website seemed to confirm that, yes, an unwanted ‘woke’ row... Source ..read more

There is more than a bit of a sense of finality pervading this show of recent work by Georg Baselitz, who is now 86 years old. The title – ‘A Confession of My Sins’ – might imply the exposure of risqué material, but actually it announces a fragile but determined public instance of a great artist performing his own last rites in painted form. Baselitz has for some time worked with the canvas lying... Source ..read more

Language is slippery, and for an exhibition of visual art, the 60th Venice Biennale is unusually preoccupied with the stuff. Helmed this year by the Brazilian curator Adriano Pedrosa, the central exhibition borrows its title from a neon text work by Claire Fontaine: Foreigners Everywhere (2004–). Of British origin and currently based in Palermo, Claire Fontaine is not a person but a collective... Source ..read more

Former British prime ministers are not exactly thin on the ground: an unlucky seven roam the plains of the international speaking circuit. Copies of their memoirs may still lurk in charity shops but Rakewell was, nevertheless, rather tickled by the title of Liz Truss’s recently published, soon-to-be-remaindered effort: Ten Years to Save the West. Your roving correspondent counts themselves a... Source ..read more

The artist and curators representing Israel at the Venice Biennale have closed the national pavilion in protest at the Israel-Hamas war. A sign taped to the door of the pavilion reads, ‘The artist and curators of the Israeli pavilion will open the exhibition when a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached.’ Tamar Margalit, one of the curators of the pavilion, said that the government of... Source ..read more

From the turn of the 20th century to the beginning of the Second World War, many American women were drawn to Paris – the centre of artistic modernity – in the pursuit of personal and creative freedom. Exercising their newfound independence, these voluntary ‘exiles’ made significant contributions to Parisian culture during this time, in art, music, literature, theatre and fashion. Source ..read more

After breaking away from Munich’s New Artist Association, which dominated the German avant-garde art scene in the early 20th century, Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc formed a new collective of artists called Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). As outlined in a publication of the same name in 1912, the group’s objective was to inject a sense of spiritualism into modern art... Source ..read more

This summer, the Olympic Games are returning to Paris, exactly 100 years since France last hosted the global sporting event. As part of the accompanying city-wide cultural programme, the Louvre is hosting an exhibition exploring the origins of the Games and their rich history (24 April–16 September). In particular, the exhibition looks at the social and political context that led to the conception... Source ..read more

For an event whose central theme this year is foreigners and strangers, there is a surprising homogeny to the national pavilions at the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale. It feels as though Adriano Pedrosa’s theme has been taken up in similar ways by both artists and curators. After all, as one artist said to me, there is something rather outmoded about the concept of national pavilions. Source ..read more

Outside Antwerp’s Royal Museum of Fine Arts (KMSKA) hangs a large banner displaying a full-length photograph of an unfamiliar man. With one hand holding a lit cigarette and the other tucked under his armpit, this figure, with his thick-rimmed glasses, looks like any other bearded intellectual of the 1950s. A leading light of Antwerp’s avant-garde during the ’50s and ’60s, the painter Jef Verheyen... Source ..read more