6 h. ago Andy Warhol would have hated safe spaces. So why keep dragging dead artists into today’s culture wars?

Critics and curators are reframing great artists, from Gentileschi to Soutine, to fit with modern ethical narratives. But this ignores the glorious ambivalence of their creationsOne rainy afternoon last winter, sitting under a blanket with a cup of tea, I found myself Googling paintings by Chaïm Soutine. It’s a pastime I’ve indulged ever since visiting an exhibition of his portraits of hotel staff on the French Riviera during the 1920s – paintings that combine such a mixture of tenderness and debasement that it’s as if his brush is kissing and beating his subjects at the same time.I flicked through images of hopelessly innocent cooks and bellboys, with complexions the colour of raw sausage and ears that look as if they have been brutally yanked. And as I did, I came across a review of the very show where I had first encountered Soutine’s works. Ah, I thought, looking forward to luxuriating in literature about his particular genius for kindly sadism. Continue reading...

Events

21 h. ago DAN HODGES: Britain is being governed by a spectre. Even an ex

What is the point of Keir Starmer? Set aside the politics. Park the normal Punch and Judy Westminster knockabout. Dial down the culture war rhetoric.

Politics

44 h. ago ‘A very tough moment’: how Trump has put museums in jeopardy

A study has shown the devastating impact of arts funding cuts on institutions across America and many within the industry are concerned for what’s nextFrom Times Square to the Washington Monument, America saw in the new year with a bigger bang than usual, celebrating the fact that 2026 marks the nation’s 250th birthday. Yet as the US looks back, precious repositories of the nation’s history are facing an uncertain future.Museum attendances are down. Budgets are precarious. Cuts in federal funding are taking their toll. And Donald Trump’s culture wars are spreading fear, intimidation and self-censorship among some directors and donors. Continue reading...

Politics

57 h. ago Supreme Court takes up culture war battle over transgender athletes in school sports

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments over state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams

Events

8 d. ago Secret Cold War spy school in Scotland where famous writers trained as Russian linguists

The fishing village was home to the Joint Services School for Linguistics, where servicemen including Alan Bennett, Dennis Potter and Michael Frayn were trained in Russian language and culture during the Cold War

Events

1 week ago Actor Warwick Davis calls OBE accolade a ‘very dignified honour’

It comes after he was named in the New Year Honours list earlier this week, for his services to drama and charity.

Events

2 w. ago Wuthering Heights, Michael Jackson and the ‘Trump effect’ – will 2026 see the end of the ‘woke’ blockbuster?

The president is scrutinising studio deals, and was rewarded with the promise of a Rush Hour reboot. With Supergirl, Hoppers and a live-action Moana on the way, can Hollywood stand up to Trump?It’s fair to say that Hollywood is in crisis, or at least in transition. Studios getting taken over, culture wars all over the place, and gen AI rearing its head. The last thing they need is an interventionist president determined to wage war on the entertainment industry, as well as no doubt extracting what value he can. Donald Trump, as we know, is very interested in the movie business: in his pre-politics days, he made dozens of appearances in films, as well as on TV. It seems very likely that he’s eyeing a place at Hollywood’s top table after he leaves office (presuming he does).Perhaps that’s what is behind his most spectacular recent intervention: demanding, and getting, a fourth Rush Hour movie from the new owners of Paramount Pictures, the studio that was recently taken over by David E...

Politics

2 w. ago Brit living in US warns fellow tourists about culture habit 'you're not prepared for'

A British man living in America has cautioned UK tourists about one of the country's common cultural habits that's proved to be quite the "culture shock" and may catch others off guard

Events

2 w. ago Conservative and Christian? US right champions psychedelic drugs

Texas governor among those to call for expanded access to ibogaine, said to help with treating veterans with PTSDFor half a century, psychedelics largely belonged to the cultural left: anti-war, anti-capitalist, suspicious of the church and state. Now, one of the most politically consequential psychedelic drugs in the US – ibogaine – is being championed by evangelical Christians, Republican governors, military veterans, and big tech billionaires.Many of them see ibogaine, an intense psychedelic derived from a central African rootbark, as a divine technology. In fact, some pointedly do not refer to it as a psychedelic, given the apparent baggage of the term in some circles. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago Pierce Brosnan says Netflix’s ‘unsettling’ Warner Bros deal ‘doesn’t feel culturally right’

‘Thursday Murder Club’ actor said he has witnessed cinemas ‘evaporating from the landscape’ where he lives in both California and London

Events

4 w. ago When We Are Married at Donmar Warehouse: This zesty revival is a joyful rediscovery

The pleasure is in the cast’s performance with Tim Sheader’s version of JB Priestley’s 1938 quietly radical comedy

Events

4 w. ago Why tonight’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year could ignite the culture war

Comment: After the year of his life, the award should go to Rory McIlroy – though it does not make it a scandal if the public decides to crown someone else

Events

last month The Vietnam War ended 50 years ago. But its lessons live on in The Quiet American

Phillip Noyce’s political drama is a searing critique of American interventionism that feels all too pertinent todayGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailAlden Pyle (Brendan Fraser) was a “quiet American”, says Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine) to a French policeman. “A friend,” he adds, as the lifeless corpse of Pyle stares back at him with a wretched expression.This is the scene that opens Phillip Noyce’s Vietnam-set political drama before the film flashes back a few months earlier to 1952 Saigon, where Fowler, an ageing Englishman, lives leisurely as a journalist reporting on the first Indochina war. When Pyle, a young American aid worker advocating for US intervention, falls for Fowler’s 20-year-old Vietnamese lover, Phượng (Đỗ Thị Hải Yến), the jaded reporter’s tranquil existence begins to unravel.Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Continue reading...

Events