‘Barbara Windsor smacked our bottoms!’ Pet Shop Boys on showstopping visuals, horrified bosses – and snubbing the queen

The Pet Shop Boys have released a comprehensive 600-page visual monograph titled 'Pet Shop Boys: Volume,' documenting over 40 years of their aesthetic evolution. The book explores the duo's collaboration with high-profile artists, photographers, and directors including Wolfgang Tillmans, Alasdair McLellan, Derek Jarman, and long-time designer Mark Farrow. It highlights how Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe utilized the music industry's 1980s boom to treat pop music as a 'Gesamtkunstwerk' (total work of art), merging avant-garde fashion, minimalist graphic design, and cinematic music videos.

On Arte, a Documentary Deciphers the Persistent Misunderstanding Around the Painter of Happiness, Auguste Renoir

Sur Arte, un documentaire décrypte le malentendu tenace autour du peintre du bonheur, Auguste Renoir

A new documentary titled "Renoir in Love" airing on Arte examines the persistent critical misunderstanding surrounding Auguste Renoir. The film, released in tandem with a major double exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay, argues that Renoir's joyful depictions of couples and modern leisure have been unfairly dismissed as saccharine, relegating him to the margins of modern art history. It presents a nuanced portrait of an artist whose work was fundamentally driven by a philosophy of love and human connection.

This Massive Collection of More Than a Million Tools Tells the Striking History of Jewelry Making in America

Kevin Potter, a jeweler based in Tucson, Arizona, has assembled the world's largest collection of artifacts from America's industrial jewelry manufacturing era. His collection, housed in two warehouses, contains an estimated 1.2 million hubs and dies—the hand-carved steel tools used to mass-produce jewelry through die-striking—along with related machinery and ephemera, preserving a vast physical archive of a vanished craft.

ArtReview Asia Spring 2026 Issue Out Now

The Spring 2026 issue of ArtReview Asia has been published, featuring a cover profile of artist Li Yi-Fan. The issue includes an in-depth look at Li's work, which explores the relationship between humans and machines through video installations and performance lectures, ahead of his representation of Taiwan at the Venice Biennale. Other articles examine the contemporary art scene in Bangkok, urban redevelopment in Colombo, a colonial-era plant hunting exhibition in London, and Taiwan's museum boom.

The Space Between. Adam Patrick Grant by Michela Ceruti

Adam Patrick Grant’s artistic practice is rooted in a meticulous and devotional process of observation, transitioning from a background in film to a dedicated focus on oil painting over the last three years. Working from his London studio, Grant utilizes an extensive archive of personal sketches, photographs, and found imagery—such as anonymous postcards and family photos from markets—to capture fleeting moments of intimacy and the unspectacular everyday. His work is characterized by a rhythmic dialogue between the act of walking, the gathering of visual fragments, and the translation of these memories into tender, precise compositions.

Who Created the Book of Kells? A Master Craftsman Takes on the Mystery

A new project led by master craftsman Thomas Keyes aims to recreate medieval vellum-making techniques to test theories about the origin of the Book of Kells. Keyes will build a replica of a washing tank found at the Scottish monastery of Portmahomack and use historically accurate methods, including potentially using seaweed-based lye, to produce vellum. This experimental archaeology seeks to determine if the manuscript's unique physical characteristics match the production methods used at Portmahomack.

New book shows why physical maps have an important role to play in our digital world

Professor James Cheshire spent three years cataloging forgotten maps in a University College London storage room, resulting in the book 'The Library of Lost Maps.' The volume presents 96 historically significant maps, ranging from a pre-atomic bomb Hiroshima map to a Victorian geological survey of India, highlighting their physical fragility and hidden stories.

Navajo Nation: the fight for cultural survival – photo essay

The Navajo Nation is currently navigating a complex struggle to preserve its cultural heritage against the lingering effects of colonial-era boarding schools and the modern pressures of social media and urbanization. While elders like Virginia Brown recount the trauma of forced assimilation and language suppression, a new generation is grappling with a decline in Navajo fluency, which UNESCO now classifies as a vulnerable language. Despite these hurdles, community members are utilizing local schools and traditional practices to reclaim their identity.

‘The shadows, the figures playing basketball … I waited for the magic to appear – then it did’: José Luis Morales Martín’s best phone picture

Architect José Luis Morales Martín captured a photograph of two teenagers playing basketball in his Madrid apartment complex's courtyard from his living room window. He was struck by the interplay of light, shadow, and geometry, using his phone to seize the moment when the scene's 'magic' became apparent.

The shot that shows the absurdity of war: Peter van Agtmael’s best photograph

Photographer Peter van Agtmael reflects on a photograph he took 20 years ago while embedded with the U.S. military in Iraq. The image, captured during his first experience of war, depicts a dejected American soldier sitting in an ordinary Iraqi living room, a scene he describes as showing the vast military machine mobilized in the Middle East.

How to Survive AI

Two documentaries premiering at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival directly confront the discourse surrounding artificial intelligence. Valerie Veatch's 'Ghost in the Machine' traces the racist, eugenicist origins of AI research, linking it to a history of American techno-fascism, while Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell's 'The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist' offers a more measured, personal exploration of public anxieties about the technology.

'There's no point in an art gallery without artists'

Artists and curators in the UK are increasingly mobilizing to address the rapid integration of artificial intelligence in the creative sector. Following a public backlash against an AI-focused workshop at a local gallery in Hull, curator Lucy Brooke organized forums to discuss the ethical implications of machine learning, including copyright, plagiarism, and environmental impacts. While some creators are calling for stricter institutional policies and collective lobbying against AI exploitation, others, like illustrator Eleanor Tomlinson, view the technology as a transitional challenge similar to the invention of photography, focusing on public education rather than opposition.