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Articles by Izzy Bilkus
Interval Gallery is here to break art world bad habits
13 min read Father-and-son duo David and Jacob Gryn have turned a Georgian flat in Clerkenwell into a gallery aiming to merge old and new Some of the best things happen by chance. For father-and-son duo David and Jacob Gryn, it was serendipity that brought them to their Georgian flat in Clerkenwell – a space now transformed into their new gallery.
Dear Greg, Do I need a ‘personal brand’ to succeed as an artist?
6 min read In the next edition of our art advice column, Greg Rook unpacks the myth of the ‘personal brand’ and why you don’t always need to schmooze to be seen Dear Greg, I’m an artist with some interest around my work, but I keep being advised that building my ‘personal brand’ will help my work sell better. I’m quite introverted, so I really dislike going to openings, networking and posting a lot on social media. How important is this for my work?
Can everyone become a great artist? I found out, the hard way
11 min read Isaac Hodgson discovers what happens when an art writer attempts to draw himself into an artist, and ends up facing a sobering crit from expert Thomas McMullan I’ve always hated the phrase, “Of course you can draw! Everyone can!” It’s been directed back to me (or spat back in my face) for years by artist friends, but the honest truth is that I can barely draw a stick figure. As my career as a junior art critic progresses, I’ve decided it’s high time I put this to bed.
Stoke me up: my potty pilgrimage to Britain’s ceramic capital
14 min read From Wedgwood to Johnny Vegas, Verity Babbs reports kiln-side from the British Ceramics Biennial I love ceramics. Not so much ancient-pots-and-medieval-fragments ceramics, but more trinkets-and-figurines ceramics, because I like to imagine where I’d put them in the make-believe mansion I live in in my dreams. It’s really just shopping. So when the British Ceramics Biennial invited me up to Stoke-on-Trent, the UK’s pottery capital, for a weekend, how could I refuse?
Art Basel rewind: "There have been countless subplots, some of which I’ll take to my grave"
19 min read Popping his Art Basel flagship cherry, Joe Bobowicz enters the vortex – and lives to tell the tale Ah, Art Basel, undoubtedly the most important pit stop in today’s merry-go-round of art fairs. Held in and around the clinical confines of a Herzog & de Meuron-designed convention centre, the legendary, 1970-founded trade show is catnip for art-worlders keen to catch blue-chip greats, as well as hot-shit breakthroughs.
The press trip that burst my art world bubble
11 min read Invited to a Surrealist-themed art retreat in rural France, Verity Babbs gets a peek behind the curtain of the myths we tell about artists, patrons, and the ordinary lives behind the spectacle “It’s our national dish – I’m not a picky eater, I’m a patriot” I explain to friends, trying to justify the chicken tikka masala I choose every time we order Indian food. I am fooling no one: I am a picky eater.
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My road trip from Rome to Florence in five apocalyptic artworks
8 min read Haunted by the state of world affairs, George Nelson hired a car and drove 250 miles through Italy in search of salvation “Hell on earth”. This phrase keeps cropping up in the news. Raging forest fires fuelled by global warming, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s demolition of Gaza. Nature waging war on humans, and the latter two conflicts branded as retribution by power drunk, ideology-driven autocrats playing God and acting with impunity. They have wrought havoc on a biblical scale.
Alice Neel, all skew-whiff
10 min read Matthew Holman takes a straight look at a new exhibition of Alice Neel’s still lifes and street scenes (and a couple of portraits) at Xavier Hufkens in Brussels “I am an old-fashioned painter”, Alice Neel once said. “I do country scenes, city scenes, figures, portraits, and still life… Still life is just composing and thinking about lines and colours and often flowers.” To a casual onlooker, what could be more traditional? Surely these old subjects are not those of a modern painter?
Ed Ruscha is still playing word games
10 min read Matthew Holman visits Ed Ruscha’s concurrent London and Paris shows to discover how the 88-year-old artist is still the master of wordplay Ed Ruscha – pronounced ‘rew-shay’, as he once had it printed on a business card – will turn 88 in December. He’s still playing word games with his gallery, needling his public with mischievous phonetic experiments, and giving copyright permission-seekers a migraine.
21 questions with Jack Pierson
9 min read Plaster plays 21 questions with the artist in celebration of his newly opened exhibition, ‘The Miami Years’, at the Bass Museum of Art Jack Pierson is Americana through and through. Born in Massachusetts in 1960, the photographer fled NYC for Miami in the winter of 1984, landing in a sun-drenched world of thrift stores, drag queens, and art-deco daydreams, where he captured South Beach’s art scene and queer nightlife.
“Wake the fuck up, it’s Art Basel Paris”
21 min read In a season of global art fair fatigue, Joe Bobowicz finds Paris holding its own In an international circuit of art fairs, Art Basel’s franchise has smartly capitalised on a healthy demand for big, blue-chip-heavy trade shows. Art Basel Paris, as of 2022 – when it replaced the now-defunct FIAC – is a case in point. Today, it stands as an unmissable pit-stop amongst hundreds. For context, in 2024, there were around 336 art fairs.
“Wake the fuck up, it’s Art Basel Paris”
22 min read In a season of global art fair fatigue, Joe Bobowicz finds Paris holding its own In an international circuit of art fairs, Art Basel’s franchise has smartly capitalised on a healthy demand for big, blue-chip-heavy trade shows. Art Basel Paris, as of 2022 – when it replaced the now-defunct FIAC – is a case in point. Today, it stands as an unmissable pit-stop amongst hundreds. For context, in 2024, there were around 336 art fairs.
Confessions of an art fair service worker
8 min read Writer Hannah Sargeant has 15 years’ experience in hospitality, but as she was reminded at Frieze London this year, nothing is quite like working an art fair I’m at Frieze London, in the belly of the beast.
Frieze London rewind: luxury, lunacy and public humiliation
14 min read Victoria Comstock-Kershaw reports from the art world’s annual fever dream, where the art is questionable, the booze is endless, and dignity is the first thing to go “I thought Frieze was a magazine,” says my boyfriend, who is a sensible man and therefore does not work in the arts.
Frieze London 2025 rewind: luxury, lunacy and public humiliation
14 min read Victoria Comstock-Kershaw reports from the art world’s annual fever dream, where the art is questionable, the booze is endless, and dignity is the first thing to go “I thought Frieze was a magazine,” says my boyfriend, who is a sensible man and therefore does not work in the arts.
“Perfect, nasty images”: Merry Alpern’s ‘Dirty Windows’
6 min read A show of the American photographer’s controversial 1990s series in a derelict pub leaves Eddy Frankel wrestling with ethics and excess Deep in the bleakest of frigid New York winters – a winter so long and so cold the city ran out of gritting salt – Merry Alpern saw something she couldn’t take her eyes off. From a window in a friend’s grimy Manhattan building, she had a near perfect view into the bathroom of a new, secret, illegal ‘gentleman’s club’.
Plaster Shoots: our Frieze Week celebrations in Soho
10 min read At the start of Frieze Week, we hosted a special joint event at Plaster HQ to celebrate the opening of Keith Coventry’s Store takeover and Kristy Chan’s new exhibition Tuesday night was a big one – not only was it the eve of Frieze London VIP day, it was also the opening night of two very special Plaster events: Keith Coventry’s Store takeover and Kristy Chan’s new exhibition, ‘To Autumn’.
The Radar: Mika Horibuchi, Rasoul Ashtary and Anton Munar
6 min read We’re back with a Frieze London special of The Radar: the series that spotlights our favourite up-and-coming artists When it comes to discovering new art, Frieze Week is great, but it’s also a lot. Let this edition of The Radar be your breather – cutting through the chaos to spotlight three rising stars at the fair: Mika Horibuchi, Rasoul Ashtary, and Anton Munar.
Alexis Soul-Gray’s carnival of chaos
9 min read Somewhere between a fairytale and a fever dream, Alexis Soul-Gray’s new show at William Hine Gallery draws on fragments of performance and folklore Picture this: in the shrouded silence of an abandoned theatre, a faint, flickering glow persists – an elusive light casting an unearthly halo across the empty stage. Its pale, trembling illumination dances against the darkness, whispering secrets of performances long gone.
Tate’s Theatre Picasso fluffs its lines
9 min read Tate Modern’s latest Picasso show promises theatre but delivers amateur dramatics, as Matthew Holman finds We all have those friends, probably from school or sixth form, whom we feel obligated to meet every six to nine months for a “catch up” but know full well it will be cursory and banal; something you should do for old time’s sake but, when the time comes, don’t really want to. Going to Tate these days feels a little like this.
Keith Coventry: “It’s only a T-shirt, turn it inside-out if it offends you”
13 min read From giant underwear to kebab T-shirts, Keith Coventry turns his archive of British grit into a new series of merchandise for his Plaster Store takeover on 14th October Throughout his 40-year career, Burnley-born artist Keith Coventry has transformed the everyday – fast food, council estates, urban decay, drugs, the British monarchy – into sharp and compelling reflections on modern life.
spittle’s Frieze London survival guide: “being married puts off collectors”
10 min read London in October is all hopes, dreams, and free drinks as the circus descends on Regent’s Park for Frieze. Whether it’s your first rodeo on the booth, or you’re a veteran looking to soothe the pre-fair jitters, spittle has all the advice you didn’t know you needed POV: it’s the Saturday of Frieze Week and you’re Ruinart-drunk in a random collector’s West London flat, surrounded by trashy blue chip pieces. We’re talking Architectural Digest… not Apartamento.
It’s time to stop shit-talking the Turner Prize
8 min read After decades of being Britain’s favourite punching bag, the Turner Prize exhibition lands a knockout in Bradford this year, as Harriet Lloyd-Smith finds Ever shit-talked the Turner Prize? Yeah, me too. Of course we have. It’s an easy target, low hanging fruit, like bitching about rain. Last year, the Turner Prize turned 40.
Kristy Chan: “Painting feels like an endless stew”
8 min read Ahead of her new show at Plaster, Kristy Chan talks about yearning for autumn, angry paintings and wrestling with “so much crap” In many ways, this past year has been a victory lap for Kristy Chan. Since her autumn 2024 solo show at Tabula Rasa Gallery in Beijing, the 28-year-old painter has featured in Soho Revue’s summer group show, ‘Immaterial’ and completed a residency at Dragon Hill, Mouans-Sartoux, France.
Michael Landy laid bare: “I don’t spare anything”
8 min read Michael Landy has built a career on elevating the discarded. As Emily Steer finds on a studio visit, the artist’s new show at Hastings Contemporary is an unflinching scrutiny of ageing, illness and his father’s declining health It’s the eyes that say the most. In the first room of Michael Landy’s exhibition ‘Look’ at Hastings Contemporary, I am met with his 2025 pencil drawing Self Portrait at the Age of 62.
Rauschenberg at 100: the artist who tried collecting the world
10 min read As a New York exhibition marks what would be Rauschenberg’s 100th birthday, Matthew Holman probes the artist’s greatest ambition Robert Rauschenberg would have turned 100 at the end of October. To celebrate his centenary, the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) has opened Robert Rauschenberg’s ‘New York: Pictures from the Real World’, which centres on the works the cheeky-chappy Texan artist made of, and in response to, his adopted hometown.
65 openings, zero chill: dispatch from Brussels
10 min read “This is the Brussels I want to see”: Nicolas Vamvouklis looks back on visiting the first edition of Brussels Art Week AKA RendezVous earlier this month, and finds that the city is far more than a stopover Brussels always felt like a bit of a mystery to me. I’d visited a couple of times in the past, but never stayed long enough to really figure it out. This time was different.
Stoke me up: my potty pilgrimage to Britain’s ceramic capital
12 min read From Wedgwood to Johnny Vegas, Verity Babbs reports kiln-side from the British Ceramics Biennial I love ceramics. Not so much ancient-pots-and-medieval-fragments ceramics, but more trinkets-and-figurines ceramics, because I like to imagine where I’d put them in the make-believe mansion I live in in my dreams. It’s really just shopping. So when the British Ceramics Biennial invited me up to Stoke-on-Trent, the UK’s pottery capital, for a weekend, how could I refuse?
Love, fight, paint: in the ring with Betty Ogundipe
11 min read The London-based artist’s new exhibition, ‘LOVE/FIGHT’ is a fearless ode to femininity, resistance and self-protection I meet Betty Ogundipe in a boxing ring in North Kensington, and watch in awe as the 23-year-old artist picks up a pair of boxing gloves and proceeds to kick, skip and throw punches with enviable elegance. As I watch Betty in action, I debate with myself about how we view artists.
Armory Week NYC rewind: bird shit, great art and humble pie
12 min read Osman Can Yerebakan is back at it, taking on the glorious circus of New York’s Armory Show and its surrounding events in his stride. Oh, and he got shat on Wednesday There are a few things in modern culture more symbolically conclusive than bird poop. I was on the corner of 6th Avenue and 53rd Street when an avian perched on a traffic light rod released its inner runnings.
Dispatches from Eastern Ukraine
13 min read Matthew Holman looks to to artists telling the human story of the Russo-Ukrainian War behind the headlines Between 2010 and 2011, documentary photographer Mark Neville travelled to Helmand Province, Afghanistan to work with British soldiers as an official war artist.
Jump in, lad: how Sam Batley chose life
10 min read Following years of drug and alcohol addiction, and a suicide attempt in 2019, artist Sam Batley rebuilt his life through creativity, community and being “a big fucking sponge” “Jump or don’t jump, no one’s arsed” reads the final line of the bio for artist Sam Batley’s exhibition, ‘Point of Non-Existence’, spread across the walls of Ropes & Twines on Bold Street in Liverpool.
The press trip that burst my art world bubble
11 min read Invited to a Surrealist-themed art retreat in rural France, Verity Babbs gets a peek behind the curtain of the myths we tell about artists, patrons, and the ordinary lives behind the spectacle “It’s our national dish – I’m not a picky eater, I’m a patriot” I explain to friends, trying to justify the chicken tikka masala I choose every time we order Indian food. I am fooling no one: I am a picky eater.
Nude clowns, trad-wives and thespians: My trip to Edinburgh for an art-comedy blowout
5 min read We dispatched Livia Magyar to the buzzing streets of Edinburgh August in Edinburgh is a month in which the boundaries between life, laughs and art are blurred. To the unfamiliar (where have you been hiding?), the Fringe (est. 1947) is the famous performing arts festival that runs in parallel with the EAF (Edinburgh Arts Festival).
How Dick Bengtsson found rot in Sweden’s fairytale
8 min read 20th-century Swedish painter Dick Bengtsson laced his canvases with swastikas, exposing the homegrown horrors beneath his country’s veneer of innocence If you know anything about the Swedish enfant terrible Dick Bengtsson, you will know he painted swastikas. He painted them everywhere.
Bolding Gallery is ripping up the rulebook
14 min read Esme Blair and Sam Lincoln are reinventing what a gallery should be, building one of London’s most exciting spaces for young artists One late summer afternoon last year, I dragged myself to the Yoko Ono retrospective at the Tate Modern. There was a room dedicated to performance archives from Ono’s Chambers Street loft series.
“Who the hell knows what’s coming next?” My trip to a rural Lithuanian art farm
14 min read In an agricultural warehouse-turned-artist studio in eastern Lithuania, Chris Erik Thomas finds three generations of artists grappling with intergenerational trauma Flying to Vilnius, en route to a mysterious art event in the Lithuanian countryside, I began to relate to the post-Soviet urge to hoard objects. I was sitting in the first row – a bittersweet space where, in exchange for extra legroom, you must forfeit nearly all belongings to the overhead compartments.
Houghton Festival: came for the art, got lost in the magic
14 min read Craig Richards’ weekender at Houghton Hall promised world-class sculpture, music and 24-hour hedonism. As Dora DB found, no one left disappointed King’s Cross is always a sensory overload – even on a good day. But nothing quite says “peak Britain” like the sight of fully grown adults earnestly queuing to pose with a trolley at Platform 9¾. I ponder this phenomenon while glazing over by departures board, hunting for the train to King’s Lynn. No luck.
Plaster Shoots: Working Arts Club's 1st birthday bash
7 min read Working Arts Club’s 1st birthday was a night of killer art, throwback tunes and featured an extra special guest appearance. Were you snapped? On Thursday night, Working Arts Club celebrated its 1st birthday. The club joined forces with Working Class Creatives to bring the communities together for an unforgettable night at The Art House in Bethnal Green.
Not your typical art collectors
16 min read You don’t have to work for McKinsey to be a patron. Just ask these London magpies Like it or not, the art world survives on collectors. Philanthropists and foundations funded by high-net worth individuals play a big part in ensuring that established artists hold fort while emerging artists climb the ranks. It’s easy to assume this part of the art world is made up exclusively of management consultants, men in finance or those with family wealth. And yes, there is truth to the stereotype.
Andy Goldsworthy: against the grain
8 min read Andy Goldsworthy’s monumental retrospective at the Royal Scottish Academy is a muddy journey through grief, grit, rejection and rule breaking At the start of ‘Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years’ is a barbed wire fence wrapped around two neo-classical columns that blocks my usual route through the gallery.
Just how abstract was George Morrison?
8 min read ‘The Magical City: George Morrison’s New York’ at The Met spans the grit of New York and the solitude of the Great Lakes, but as Travis Diehl explores, you might come away wondering just how nonfigurative the Abstract Expressionist’s work actually is It’s subtitled ‘George Morrison’s New York’, but the paintings in this brief survey at The Met – 35 works in total – draw on two distinct landscapes.
Welcome to the great gallery getaway
12 min read Art galleries are increasingly choosing further afield locations to set up outposts. But are things more accessible, or are these just new venues for the same elite economy? It’s a sunny Saturday in Somerset. We’re sitting on the front lawn outside Hauser & Wirth eating strawberry ice cream from the gallery’s farm shop while our sticky toddler darts between Niki de Saint Phalle’s voluptuous dancing women. No disapproving looks. No anxious gallery assistants hovering.
The flaccid afterlife of the art NFT
8 min read NFTs were once dubbed the future of art, but what part of pump-and-dumping millions of dollars into monkey JPEGs actually felt culturally legit? Victoria Comstock-Kershaw explores what we got right, and very wrong, about NFT art – and tracks down the bros still preaching from the blockchain I am in an elevator in New York, rocketing towards the rooftop bar of a highrise in the Meatpacking District.
Dick Jewell: 50 years of not giving a fuck
10 min read For decades, cult artist Dick Jewell has remixed visual culture his own way – and he still doesn’t need your approval, as Tom Seymour finds out “My old drinking partner,” says Dick Jewell, turning the page on his catalogue and gesturing briefly at the portrait. He waits for my reaction. “Francis,” he adds. We’re looking at a picture, taken by Jewell, of the unmistakable face of Francis Bacon. He’s smiling slightly, wearing an old baggy jumper.
Move aside Basel, Hydra is where the art world lets its hair down
11 min read Nicolas Vamvouklis took a dreamy trip from Athens to Hydra for DESTE’s summer openings, presented by Dakis Joannou “DESTE” means “to look” in Greek, and it’s also the name of the foundation established in 1983 by mega-collector Dakis Joannou to promote international contemporary art and explore its crossover with fashion and design. It’s become a ritual, an annual rendez-vous for art professionals and lovers alike to gather in Greece each June for DESTE’s summer openings.
Move aside Basel, Hydra is where the art world lets its hair down
11 min read Nicolas Vamvouklis took a dreamy trip from Athens to Hydra for DESTE’s summer openings “DESTE” means “to look” in Greek, and it’s also the name of the foundation established in 1983 by mega-collector Dakis Joannou to promote international contemporary art and explore its crossover with fashion and design. It’s become a ritual, an annual rendez-vous for art professionals and lovers alike to gather in Greece each June for DESTE’s summer openings.
Plaster Shoots: Gary Card's trippy takeover
8 min read For our latest Plaster Store takeover, Gary Card cracked open the doors to his chaotic junk shop-turned-psychedelic madhouse. Were you snapped? It seemed all of London flocked to Soho last night for the opening of Gary Card’s Plaster Store takeover. The artist and set designer invited us into his psychedelic mind palace for a full-blown sensory overload (in the best way possible).
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