1. 24 May


    Our choice for Exhibition of the Week - “Michael Landy: Saints Alive” at the National Gallery, which opened yesterday. The gallery’s Sunley Room will fill with towering, kinetic sculptures by Landy inspired by early Renaissance paintings of saints from the permanent collection. We can’t wait to go!  [Photo: Michael Landy, courtesy of Thomas Dane Gallery/The National Gallery] 

    Our choice for Exhibition of the Week - “Michael Landy: Saints Alive” at the National Gallery, which opened yesterday. The gallery’s Sunley Room will fill with towering, kinetic sculptures by Landy inspired by early Renaissance paintings of saints from the permanent collection. We can’t wait to go! 

    [Photo: Michael Landy, courtesy of Thomas Dane Gallery/The National Gallery] 

     

  2. 24 May


    In the Frame: Equal Tom Humberstone’s latest observational comic for the New Statesman. You can see more from In the Frame here.

    In the Frame: Equal


    Tom Humberstone’s latest observational comic for the New Statesman. You can see more from In the Frame here.

     

  3. 24 May


    “Her voice, once so English, has turned into a slip-slidey American lilt, half-speech, half-jazz, frequently yoyoing to a deeper register … In Marling, we’re watching an accelerated transition from youthful talent to artistic sophistication.” Kate Mossman reviews Once I Was An Eagle (Rough Trade), the new album from Laura Marling. [Photo: Max Knight] 

    “Her voice, once so English, has turned into a slip-slidey American lilt, half-speech, half-jazz, frequently yoyoing to a deeper register … In Marling, we’re watching an accelerated transition from youthful talent to artistic sophistication.”

    Kate Mossman reviews Once I Was An Eagle (Rough Trade), the new album from Laura Marling.

    [Photo: Max Knight] 

     

  4. 23 May



    It’s just before 9pm on Wednesday evening, and the handful of customers in Woolwich Wetherspoons are distracted by the giant TV screen playing looped footage of a crime scene about half a mile up the road. It’s the main topic of conversation, and even the barman is arguing with the waitress, like people everywhere have been arguing: who did it, why, what it means. A few minutes later, a dozen men – youngish, in windbreaker jackets – enter the pub, looking jumpy. Several are talking into their mobiles. As his companions approach the bar, one steps back outside and unfurls a St George’s flag with “EDL – Bexley Divison” written on it.
    — Daniel Trilling gives an eye-witness account of last night’s EDL disturbances in south east London.
     

  5. 23 May


    altend: I wrote about why it’s so touching that Faiza Hussein is – however briefly – the living embodiment of Marvel’s Britain.

    altend:

    I wrote about why it’s so touching that Faiza Hussein is – however briefly – the living embodiment of Marvel’s Britain.

     

  6. 23 May



    This morning, the Metro, the Guardian and the Telegraph all offer headlines which primarily communicate the message of the murderers, so handing them the media megaphone which their crime was designed to create. They also, in print, can seem to give more shape to what seems a rather more rambling and incoherent rant… Perhaps it is a shame that no newspaper inverted the lens. As one of the killers told her “we want to start a war in London tonight”, the astonishingly brave scout leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett answered him: “it is only you versus many people. You are going to lose” Could that not have been the stuff of front page headlines too?.. There will be a broader appetite across London to make sure that it is not only the killers who grab the media megaphone. How might the voice of millions who quietly reject the offer of hatred and division make sure that we get a hearing too?
    — 

    Sunder Katwala on the Woolwich killing – how the media got it wrong and how the public can get it right. 

     

  7. 23 May



    Our big fat fear

    As our waistlines have grown, so has our collective prejudice against the overweight, says our food writer Felicity Cloake. So how should we handle the obesity epidemic, and - with 23 junk-food outlets to ever secondary school in England - how can encourage young people to eat better? 

    [Photo: Getty Images] 

     

  8. 23 May


    Our welfare system is failing politically. It does not inspire confidence among taxpayers, nor does it provide effective support for those who need it. Increasingly it is seen to be overgenerous, disincentivising work, and out of control. Yet paradoxically, for the vast majority of workers, it provides some of the least generous support available in the developed world for people who experience the misfortune of unemployment. How did this situation come about? Ian Mulheirn: The truth about welfare [Illustration: Keith Negley] 

    Our welfare system is failing politically. It does not inspire confidence among taxpayers, nor does it provide effective support for those who need it. Increasingly it is seen to be overgenerous, disincentivising work, and out of control. Yet paradoxically, for the vast majority of workers, it provides some of the least generous support available in the developed world for people who experience the misfortune of unemployment.

    How did this situation come about?

    Ian Mulheirn: The truth about welfare

    [Illustration: Keith Negley] 

     

  9. 22 May


    In the Frame: The Head of Nigel Tom Humberstone’s observation comic for the NS. 

    In the Frame: The Head of Nigel

    Tom Humberstone’s observation comic for the NS. 

     

  10. 22 May


    Taxonomy for the masses: Is there a pornographic allure to looking at neatly organised things? 

    Philip Maughan reviews Things Come Apart, a new book by the Canadian photographer Todd McLellan.

     

  11. 22 May


    Watch Ai Weiwei’s Dumbass: Our former guest editor’s new heavy metal track reconstructs his 81 day detention. 

     

  12. 21 May



    I offer an olive branch to my fellow confused, indignant sort-of-men; those simultaneously outraged and pressurized by the swirling cocktail of laddism, Lynx adverts and pornographised culture to which we are constantly subjected; bored and annoyed by the expectations society holds for you and unhappy with the dominance of barbarous hyper-masculinity in all realms of life. To you I say - once you realise that the lines in the sand between “manly” and “girly” can be so easily washed away, it becomes much easier to reject these expectations. This is one of the most amazing things about the creation of an equal society- woman, man, however you define yourself, we all stand to benefit… There is a fight to build a fairer world going on. Now go grab yourself a peachtini and join me on the front lines.
    — Samuel C L Jones on how becoming a feminist set him free. 
     

  13. 21 May


    In The Picture: 12 May 2013. People line up to collect water at Yazarthingyan Lake near Rangoon, Burma. The other inland lakes in the area have dried up.  [Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters] 

    In The Picture: 12 May 2013. People line up to collect water at Yazarthingyan Lake near Rangoon, Burma. The other inland lakes in the area have dried up. 

    [Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters] 

     

  14. 21 May


    “In some ways ‘cartoonist’ is a derogatory term. People have said it to me dozens of times – you’re just a cartoonist. But I’m rather keen on the Wittgenstein bit about the only thing of value being what you cannot say. That’s the thing about drawing: when you try to say something in pictures, it gains a dimension that language can’t match.” Philip Maughan meets the monstrously imaginative Ralph Steadman.  [Steadman’s Self-Portrait, 2006] 

    “In some ways ‘cartoonist’ is a derogatory term. People have said it to me dozens of times – you’re just a cartoonist. But I’m rather keen on the Wittgenstein bit about the only thing of value being what you cannot say. That’s the thing about drawing: when you try to say something in pictures, it gains a dimension that language can’t match.”

    Philip Maughan meets the monstrously imaginative Ralph Steadman. 

    [Steadman’s Self-Portrait, 2006] 

     

  15. 20 May


    “… reigning ideas are, more often than not, the product of the dominant power structures. Economics, therefore, needs to be supplemented by political economy – the study of how power affects the choice of ideas and policies and the distribution of income; in short, Keynes plus J A Hobson and Karl Marx.” Robert Skidelsky on “creative destruction” and the crisis of capitalism.  [Artwork by Julie Cockburn] 

    “… reigning ideas are, more often than not, the product of the dominant power structures. Economics, therefore, needs to be supplemented by political economy – the study of how power affects the choice of ideas and policies and the distribution of income; in short, Keynes plus J A Hobson and Karl Marx.”

    Robert Skidelsky on “creative destruction” and the crisis of capitalism. 

    [Artwork by Julie Cockburn]