28 h. ago Wayne Thiebaud review – staggering still lifes to make your mouth water

Courtauld Gallery, LondonThe pop pioneer’s paintings of sweets and cakes offer up a succulent and incredibly moreish slice of a long-lost American dreamYou’re not allowed to lick paintings in museums, which is cruel when you’re faced with something as mouthwateringly tempting as Wayne Thiebaud’s art. The American pop pioneer dedicated his long career to cakes, sweets and gumball machines, a visual world of treats and candies laid out in American diners and on deli counters, tempting viewers to commit the ultimate crime and take a big, juicy bite.But he didn’t just paint for the sake of getting you salivating. His work (here at the Courtauld in his first ever UK museum show) is both an ultraserious take on the material history of painting, a sort of update on the long legacy of the still life, and a deep dive into burgeoning consumerism and the capitalistic euphoria of the mass-produced, mid-century American dream. Continue reading...

Politics

66 h. ago Sixties Surreal: new exhibition offers an alternative view of the decade

At New York’s Whitney museum, a new show finds ways to highlight the less dominant artistic forces of the eraWe all know the familiar story of art in the 1960s – pop art, conceptualism and minimalism ruled the decade, dominated by the likes of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Sol LeWitt, and Jasper Johns. Bringing a welcome dose of counter-narrative to this calcified story, the Whitney’s bold new show Sixties Surreal, aims to introduce a new cohort of 60s artists who channeled the chaotic id of the decade, but only got a fraction of the acclaim.“A generation of artists who were young in the 60s increasingly looked for artistic vocabularies that they could use to explore the weird and wild time they were living in,” said show curator Scott Rothkopf, who has longed to curate this exact show since his student days in the 1990s. “The 60s was a time of so much change – the fear of the atom bomb, multiple sexual revolutions, the civil rights movement, drug culture. Thes...

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9 d. ago Pittsburgh: I found an unexpected farm to fork oasis in this industrial US city famous for sports and pop art

“Monster or Atomic?” is the first question I’m asked as I crawl into Sunseri’s, red-eyed after my hop across the Atlantic.

Politics

2 w. ago Olivia Dean: The Art of Loving review – British pop’s biggest new star sheds the neo

(Polydor)Already dominating the charts and seemingly inspired by 70s LA, this exceptionally well-made record is full of diaristic detail and sweetly understated vocalsIf you have been paying any attention to the UK singles chart recently, it can hardly have escaped your notice that for the last couple of months it has been utterly dominated by the soundtrack for the Netflix smash KPop Demon Hunters. At the time of writing, Golden, by the cartoon’s chief protagonists Huntr/x, is enjoying its seventh week at No 1: a couple of weeks back, songs from the film would have occupied seven places in the Top 10 had chart rules not limited artists to three appearances in the Top 40.The most striking challenge to its supremacy has been mounted by London singer-songwriter Olivia Dean. Her single Man I Need has been dug in at No 2 for the last month and has been joined in the Top 10 by its predecessor, Nice to Each Other, and her collaboration with Sam Fender, Rein Me In. Further down the Top 20,...

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3 w. ago Popular London Underground station given pop art makeover in tribute to artist

Charing Cross Station has been 'taken over' in a striking pop-up tribute to the artist Keith Haring

Culture

3 w. ago London underground station given pop art makeover in tribute to famous artist

Charing Cross station has been given a pop art makeover and reimagined as "Haring Cross" in a striking pop-up tribute to the late American street artist Keith Haring

Politics