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Raye Wins 2026 Mercury Prize for Ambitious Jazz-Infused Album

Raye wins the 2026 Mercury Prize for her ambitious second album This Music May Contain Hope, becoming the first pop artist to claim the award since 1994. The album features over 100 musicians and collaborations with Al Green and Hans Zimmer.

7 min read

Literary Stars Auction Character-Naming Rights to Support Torture Survivors

Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith and Ian McEwan are among authors auctioning character-naming rights in their next novels to raise funds for torture survivors. The event is part of Freedom from Torture's 10th anniversary festival on 11 November.

5 min read

Thure Erik Lund's Norwegian Epic Arrives in English: A Portrait of Modernity's Discontents

Thure Erik Lund's long-awaited English translation of The Mystery of What Befell in the Ditch presents a portrait of a man appalled by contemporary society and desperate to return to nature, brimming with Nordic weltschmerz and ecological prophecy.

6 min read

Light and Magic: A Global Vision of Art Photography at Tate Modern

Tate Modern's sweeping exhibition of pictorialism brings together over 200 rare prints by 80+ artists, half never shown in the UK. The show traces the global movement from Singapore to Sri Lanka, revealing how photographers pursued epic beauty in everyday moments.

5 min read

Jamaican filmmakers reclaim colonial narratives through supernatural storytelling

Jamaican filmmakers are increasingly using supernatural storytelling and cultural memory to confront enslavement and colonial trauma on screen, marking a shift toward creative authority and global recognition.

6 min read

Frieze London offers mediocre paintings for the ultra-wealthy while Masters hawks dinosaur skulls

Frieze London disappoints with mediocre contemporary art while Frieze Masters hawks dinosaur fossils and historical artefacts, exposing the art market's most grotesque tendencies and the vast gulf between artistic merit and commercial value.

7 min read

Paul McCartney Demands Equal Height in Beatles Films, Texts Sam Mendes Over Casting

Paul McCartney has expressed concern to director Sam Mendes about actor height disparities in the upcoming Beatles films, texting the director after seeing promotional images where Harris Dickinson appeared taller than Paul Mescal. The issue reflects McCartney's decades-long effort to establish h...

4 min read

Fierce festival returns with VR saunas, pool shows and rotating decay

Britain's longest-running live art festival returns with VR experiences, pool performances and Faye Driscoll's acclaimed rotating stage work. More than 15 productions from 10 countries take over Birmingham venues through October 2026.

5 min read

Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found – Graham-Dixon's authoritative audiobook biography

Andrew Graham-Dixon's six-year biography explores the life and work of Johannes Vermeer, proposing new identities for figures in his paintings and connecting the Dutch master to underground radical movements. The audiobook includes colour plates and offers fresh perspectives on one of art history...

3 min read

Five Free London Art Shows: Celebrity Relics, Leaky Buildings and Gloopy Sculptures

Five free London art exhibitions showcase Amy Winehouse's personal collection, a leaky Barbican transformed into music, artificial light as dystopian threat, imperfect sculptures, and a South African city's decline.

6 min read

VisionQuest Review: Marvel's Ambitious AI Drama Undermined by Exposition and Spectacle

Paul Bettany returns in Marvel's VisionQuest, an ambitious but exposition-heavy spinoff that explores AI consciousness while remaining trapped by franchise mechanics and mandatory spectacle.

6 min read

Beth Orton Proves Mid-50s Mastery With Daring New Sound at Brighton

Beth Orton delivered a masterclass in artistic reinvention at Brighton's Concorde 2, drawing from her recent albums to showcase why she ranks among contemporary music's most inventive voices. The mid-50s artist proved that career longevity need not mean artistic compromise.

4 min read