Vasari Codex. A living chronicle of the art world.

rate_review review schedule Jun 5, 2026

Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait review – the radiant, uncontainable star she always wanted to be

The National Portrait Gallery in London has opened a new blockbuster exhibition, "Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait," marking what would have been the star's 100th birthday. The show presents Monroe through photographs, paintings, and film excerpts, tracing her transformation from Norma Jeane Baker into a global icon. It features works by renowned photographers such as Richard Avedon, Milton Greene, Cecil Beaton, Eve Arnold, Philippe Halsman, Weegee, and André de Dienes, as well as paintings by Pauline Boty and Andy Warhol. The exhibition emphasizes Monroe's agency and control over her own image, challenging the notion of uncovering a "real Marilyn" behind the glamour.

candle obituary schedule May 31, 2026

Cupcakes, bunting and a bus stuck in the mud: the funeral of Martin Parr – in pictures

Martin Parr's funeral was held at Woodlands Memorial Garden near Bristol, organized by his family and the Martin Parr Foundation. The ceremony featured his favorite music, including 'The Girl from Ipanema,' and was followed by a country fete-themed celebration with bunting, clingfilm-wrapped sandwiches, sad-faced cupcakes, and a tombola of unwanted Christmas gifts, recreating food from his famous photographs. Guests included artist Grayson Perry, who spoke fondly of Parr's obsessive nature and work ethic. Photographer Sophie Green documented the event, as Parr had long been interested in breaking the taboo of funeral photography.

article culture schedule May 27, 2026

Two Venezuelan boys in a forest full of vultures: Silvana Trevale’s best photograph

Silvana Trevale recounts the story behind her photograph of two Venezuelan brothers on a beach in Playa Medina, taken in 2018. The image, captured on a Mamiya camera during a goodbye trip with friends who were about to leave the country, shows the boys returning from a fishing trip with their father. Trevale, who left Venezuela in the mid-2010s to study at Huddersfield University, describes the surreal setting of a beach with Japanese forest grass and vultures, and how the photograph became the starting point for her decade-long project "Venezuelan Youth."

museum exhibitions schedule May 22, 2026

Phyllida Barlow: Disruptor review – sexy latex and gobs of gum as a stately home gets trashed

Phyllida Barlow's posthumous exhibition "Disruptor" at Wolterton Hall in Norfolk transforms the 18th-century Palladian mansion with her signature chaotic sculptures made from cheap materials like latex, cardboard, foam, and plywood. Works such as "Untitled: Stacked Chairs" and "Loaf" are installed throughout the stately home, clashing with its opulent interiors and historic treasures. The show, curated by artistic director Simon Oldfield, also includes a concurrent solo exhibition by Daisy Parris titled "Fist Full of Dreams."

rate_review review schedule May 15, 2026

Mounting Rene Matić’s snapshots in Perspex isn’t really enough to make them interesting | Charlotte Jansen

Rene Matić, at 29, became the youngest winner of the £30,000 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation prize, nominated for their solo exhibition "As Opposed to the Truth" at CCA Berlin. A smaller version of that show is now at the Photographers’ Gallery in London. Matić was also the youngest Turner Prize nominee last year. The article critiques Matić's work, praising their 2022 piece "Upon This Rock" for exploring masculinity, fatherhood, and British identity, but dismissing much of their other output—like the snapshot installation "Feelings Wheel"—as immature, mediocre, and reliant on display gimmicks rather than photographic substance.

museum exhibitions schedule May 7, 2026

Lotus Kang channels desire into Bvlgari's Venice Biennale pavilion

Artist Lotus Kang has created a site-specific installation for the Bvlgari pavilion at the Venice Biennale, working across three studios including a temporary Brooklyn warehouse. Her work, which includes unfixed 35mm film on the façade of Spazio Esedra and new sculptures of plaster baby birds and rubber-wrapped tatami mats, explores themes of multiplicity, permeability, and the unfixing of meaning. Kang, known for her installations at the 2023 Whitney Biennial and Chisenhale Gallery, describes herself as a maker of objects and spaces who resists single interpretations.

museum exhibitions schedule May 4, 2026

‘Of course I accepted!’ Angel Otero on Bad Bunny – and bringing some Puerto Rican flair to Somerset

Angel Otero, a Puerto Rican artist based in Somerset, discusses his emotional collaboration with musician Bad Bunny on the stage set "La Casita" for his 31-show residency in Puerto Rico. Otero's new solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Somerset features large-scale, semi-abstract paintings that draw from his childhood memories in Santurce, San Juan, including motifs like a pink vanity cabinet, birdcages, and a turbulent sea. His signature technique involves applying paint skins—dried sheets of oil paint on Perspex—to canvas, creating layered, sculptural surfaces. The show includes a diptych based on a photograph of Otero and his grandmother, marking his most figurative work to date.

article culture schedule Apr 22, 2026

Emma the joke-telling robot cracks up the care home: Paula Hornickel’s best photograph

Photographer Paula Hornickel captured a moment between an elderly care home resident named Waltraud and a social robot named Emma in Albershausen, Germany. The robot, designed for companionship in settings with staff shortages, engages residents in conversation, tells jokes, and discusses topics like favorite flowers, simulating social interaction.

rate_review review schedule Apr 20, 2026

Martin Parr: Global Warning review – the great photographer in all his gluttonous, giddy glory

A major retrospective exhibition of photographer Martin Parr's work, titled 'Global Warning,' has opened at the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris. The show, which Parr helped plan before his death in December 2023, is on track to become the museum's most visited exhibition, showcasing his signature saturated, ironic, and unflinching observations of global tourism and consumerism.

rate_review review schedule Mar 30, 2026

Dean Sameshima review – did the neighbours really not know? The extreme LA sex clubs hidden in plain sight

A new exhibition at Soft Opening in London presents Dean Sameshima's "Wonderland" series, photographs taken in the mid-1990s that document the exteriors of queer sex clubs and bathhouses in Los Angeles's Silver Lake neighborhood. The images, shot in a stark, formal style during daylight, capture the unremarkable facades of these clandestine spaces, with only descriptive titles hinting at the activities within.

article culture schedule Mar 25, 2026

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.

person Charlotte Jansen