Visual arts

Minister Noha Kattan says Riyadh University of Arts will provide talent for a Saudi arts economy likely to employ 300,000 people by end of the decade

Talent pipeline for the UK’s £100 billion creative arts industries is under threat as universities shutter loss-making arts degrees, says Ravensbourne vice-chancellor Andy Cook

Working-class undergraduates who juggle paid work with their studies are finding it difficult to devote long hours to their course, says Randall Whittaker

University of Limerick president talks about putting in place university-wide structural changes to inspire cross-pollination between disciplines

Challenges for practice research reflect broader issues around knowledge production and academic hierarchies, say Bill Balaskas and Katia Chornik

Stefano Bloch applauds a brilliant account of what street art can reveal about people, places and politics

The author of Treasured: How Tutankhamun Shaped a Century on finding girls and women in history, archaeology’s ‘heroic’ age and the cultural impact of ‘Egyptomania’

Graphic novel poses some searching questions about how we interpret the often banal objects that get dug up

Performance can help explore academic questions, say advocates, but the field still lacks full acceptance in the corridors of power and policymaking

Ambitious plans should enable research centre to apply its unique insights to ‘contemporary cultural, political and social understanding’

Our regular look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers 

Executive chair says scholarship from non-medical subjects will be vital for post-pandemic society

Darren Lilleker enjoys a useful study of how leaders have tried to shape their public images

Robert Peckham’s faith in the value of his medical humanities training was gravely tested as his father lay in intensive care

The economics are murky but the damage that closing departments will do to universities’ missions is crystal clear, says Peter Tregear

Experts lament ‘death by a thousand cuts’ amid fears Covid redundancy schemes could finish off pared back programmes

Dread of ‘selling out’ and heroic figure of ‘struggling artist’ cause many creative arts graduates to persist with dead-end jobs rather than maximising their skills in alternative careers, says Martha Bloom

Chloe Chard considers the differences between ‘dreamers’ and ‘poets’ in the ways they portrayed human figures

Emma Rees applauds a detailed analysis of how women are sidelined in the art world – and how they can fight back

Animation academic and Peppa Pig voice actor reflects on her character Miss Rabbit and why we need more female characters in children’s TV

James Stevens Curl considers the elusive notion of ‘grace’ and how it impregnated the art of the Renaissance and beyond

Rivka Isaacson is thrilled by the bold work produced at the frontiers between art and science

Kathryn M. Rudy enjoys a useful summary of recent research on how the instruments of Christ’s Passion were displayed and venerated in the Middle Ages 

During his time as a graffiti writer, Stefano Bloch was chased by the police, threatened by gangsters and witnessed savage violence. He tells Jack Grove about how he has incorporated such experiences in a powerful memoir that also makes an important contribution to research on urban life

Esther Leslie is impressed by a rich and detailed study of a haunting artist

The artist and King’s College London fellow discusses the relationship between research and art, and how climate change is reshaping her work

Matthew Reisz talks to Grayson Perry and an academic expert on performance art about the limits of student artistic expression in higher education 

Chloe Chard is intrigued by an account of the short-lived fashion for lavishly illustrated hand-coloured travel books

Ann Hughes applauds a compelling analysis of the ways that Tudor England was open to the world

Rivka Isaacson is fascinated by an adventurous journey along the frontier between arts and science

Jeff Ferrell is thrilled by a street’s eye view of the adventure of graffiti writing

Ellen T. Armour applauds a powerful account of the role photography played in the struggles over slavery

The author of Haunted Bauhaus on youthful mysteries, rediscovering lost women in the archives and queering history

Book of the week: Rachel Moss is intrigued by a bold attempt to demonstrate that the medieval world is much larger than we tend to think

Kathryn M. Rudy considers the huge expenses of doing scholarly work in her field of art history

Emma Barker reflects on the art market of two centuries ago – and how it compares with that of today

Matthew Reisz considers the tools we need to explore the wilder shores of performance art

Barry Reay praises a skilful reconstruction of a vibrant moment in New York’s art and sexual histories

Matthew Reisz considers the fascinating, painful and plain bizarre topics addressed by researchers exploring one of the last taboos

James Stevens Curl has reservations about an account of the art produced under totalitarianism

Sarah Peverley thrills to a lavish overview of the strange world of bestiaries

Kalwant Bhopal is enthusiastic about a political analysis of half a century of black art

Even in larger institutions with less disciplinary diversity, Dominic Johnson believes we must find ways to nurture the ‘resistant’ potential of art

Liz Gloyn enjoys a bold attempt to tell the story of a fascinating but largely forgotten woman

James Stevens Curl relishes the extraordinary visual splendours of a fin-de-siècle creative explosion

Creativity was key to the women’s movement, as June Purvis finds in a valuable new sourcebook

Cambridge fellow also calls for arts to be excluded from research excellence framework

This discussion of in what sense an artist owns their artwork is at its most interesting when discussing the paradoxes of ‘appropriation art’, says Jane O’Grady

Director Tom Inns explains how the institution is coping after fire gutted its iconic Mackintosh building

James Stevens Curl on a camp counter-culture that injected whimsy and vitality into art and design

Depictions of sick human bodies were valuable in advancing medical knowledge, says Helen Bynum

Sinophiles will find much to admire in this deeply learned treasure trove, writes Jonathan Mirsky

Shahidha Bari on an idiosyncratic book that attempts to understand the politics of textile culture

Book of the week: Lennard J. Davis lauds a study of portrayals of the poor as a fitting memorial to its author

Former director of Berkeley anthropology museum remembered

Exhibition showcasing stories of infertility across the ages – involving suspended uteruses and frogs – is part of the Being Human festival

Photographer and pro vice-chancellor of the University of the Arts London remembered

Contrary to the cultural meme, Canadian graduates in all subjects earn far more, on average, than coffee shop workers, say Ross Finnie, Richard Mueller and Arthur Sweetman

Book of the week: Shahidha Bari enjoys a study of how tuberculosis influenced notions of attractiveness and breeding

Tracey Warr on a broad survey that outlines women’s exclusion from an artistic movement