Arts & Culture: Art

Pin the blame on them

An exhibition of medals designed to dishonour their recipients shows that our current climate of indignation is part of a rich tradition of scorn and shame.

Perspectives

Peter Blake on Lewis Carroll’s Alice

In touch with the elements

Primal patterns of a seemingly chaotic world come to the surface in sculpture

Pleasures of the flesh

A new television series encourages the nation to take up life classes. Our art critic Tim Adams does just that, and discovers that drawing the human body is a form of ritual communion in which the sitter is as active as the artist

From the NS archive: John Berger on Picasso

It was at the New Statesman that John Berger made his reputation, contributing his first article in 1951 at the age of 24 and writing regularly thereafter as the magazine’s art critic. In this extract he explains the appeal of Pablo Picasso

Interview: David Hockney

After decades in California, the painter has returned to his native Yorkshire. He invites the New Statesman exclusively into his studio

Richard Long: Heaven and Earth

Richard Long’s fieldwork is a still point in an endlessly turning world

The nation's conscience

Representing Britain at this year’s Venice Biennale, Steve McQueen is an extravagant talent. And his experience as an official war artist in Iraq has made him determined to face down uncomfortable truths

A revealer of souls

Diane Arbus’s striking portraits illuminate the small tragedies of life

Perspectives: Elsbeth Juda, photographer, on a life in pictures