art – Page 2 – François Matarasso

I believe in doubt

Saying what’s on your mind The simple, but consistent idea behind this blog (and all my work) is that everyone

I don’t know when people started asking whether the things in art galleries were actually works of art—sometime between the

Why does art not reliably improve people? After all, the argument that it has transcendent, even spiritual value has been

A baking July afternoon in Lincolnshire. Everything feels flattened under the heat: sheep, crops, fields. The houses I pass are

Forgotten empire The almost complete absence of imperialism and particularly of colonialism from British public discourse has always struck me

Gravitas, the heavy tread of moral earnestness, becomes a bore if it is not accompanied by the light step of

As you approach the Acropolis Museum in Athens you see the Parthenon’s reflection floating in the dark glass wall of

‘I don’t care if you call my work journalism or art or whatever; whatever you want to call it is

One of the Internet’s delights is the chance of finding, and sharing, art. I’ve always loved the elegiac tone of Paul

For much of the British media, 2014 began with a panic about the opening of the UK’s borders to people