Art Monthly

‘Field Work’ – Rehana Zaman interviewed by Adam Benmakhlouf

Only in the March Art Monthly

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[image: Rehana Zaman, ‘Jo Kherray So Khaey’, 2026]

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A film still showing a close up of feet standing embedded in the dry earth of crop rows where small seedlings are springing forth into the bright sunlight.

“I was conscious of the ease with which renderings of the landscape can so easily become bucolic or romanticised – the trope of the simple rural ways of living that obscures the continual displacement and expropriation of land in the interests of capital.”

A photograph of wall-mounted white neon tubes of each letter of the alphabet written in narrow wobbly block caps, only the letters M to Q are visible in the image.

March art jobs, residencies, grants, exhibitions and other artists’ opportunities, plus art listings, podcasts and more in the latest newsletter:

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[image: Fiona Banner, ‘Every Word Unmade’, 2006–07, artist talk, 3pm 21 Mar, The Common Guild, Glasgow]

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Art Monthly : Home : The UK's leading contemporary art magazine Art Monthly is the UK's leading contemporary art magazine.

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TAKING ART APART SINCE 1976

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Art Monthly magazine March issue with a cover featuring a close-up photograph of film stock featuring piles of strawberries variously ripe or overripe

Art Monthly, Issue 494, March 2026

• Rehana Zaman – interviewed by Adam Benmakhlouf

• Mars Attacks – Bob Dickinson

• Still Lifescapes – Dave Beech

• Arash Nassiri – Profile by Matt Williams

+ news, views, reviews and more…

[cover: Rehana Zaman, ‘Soft Fruit’, 2026]

Leah Clements – Profile by Tom Denman

Only in the February Art Monthly

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[image: Leah Clements, ‘My Mouth Was Vibrating’, 2022]

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A nighttime photograph of the large screens at Piccadilly Circus displaying in huge white block capitals on a black background the text 'my mouth was vibrating'.

“Leah Clements’s commitment to access is pronounced in her use of alt (or alternative) text – the verbal description of images that assists the visually or aurally impaired – in which she is one of contemporary art’s most innovative practitioners.”

From the Back Catalogue: ‘Empire, Extinction and Ecstasy’ – Izabella Scott claims the US is obsessed yet in denial about the concept of empire.

First published in 2020
Read for free now:
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[image: Danh Vo, ‘Untitled’, 2020, White Cube, Bermondsey, London]

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A photograph of a gallery installation featuring a wall piled high with fire logs that are arranged into the design of a US flag but which have been part removed.

“The politics of imagining the US’s downfall has always been inconclusive; even as it is obliterated, these visions continue to place America centre stage. Dreams of the centre falling, after all, confirm where the centre of the world is, investing it with power even as it symbolically collapses.”

‘Art and Contested Memory’ – Bob Dickinson warns of the need to preserve collective memory against attempts by far-right regimes to erase it

Only in the February Art Monthly

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[image: Carlos Leppe, ‘The Singers’, 1980]

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A film still of an opera singer performing in close up against a sky-blue background.

“Performance art had an important role in defying Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship because of its ability to sidestep censorship, and as such it features significantly in the country’s collective memory of the period.”

‘Sick at Art’ – Sophie J Williamson calls for collective, creative resistance to the capitalist-made conditions of exhaustion and slow death

Only in the February Art Monthly

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[image: Finnegan Shannon, ‘Do you want us here or not’, 2018–]

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A photo of a blue bench outside a gallery covered with white lettering that reads: It was hard to get here. Rest here if you agree.

“It is not the cultivated slowness of wellness culture, nor a radical rest of liberation. It is something more inert, and perhaps more dangerous to capitalism’s sensibility: rest without promise. I am not accruing value; I am not ‘becoming’.”

‘Thought Trails’ – Christina Mackie interviewed by Chris Fite-Wassilak

Only in the February Art Monthly

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[image: Christina Mackie, ‘Powder People’, 2018]

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A photo of a grand marble interior empty save for some small piles of brightly coloured material.

“If you are out in the world and you’re not living on the internet, then you’re constantly being fed with the random and the infinite variety of the world, you are being given opportunities by what you observe. You’re given a vision. What are you gonna do with it?”

A film still showing a group of people in a candlelit room taking part in a healing ritual.

February art jobs, residencies, grants, exhibitions and other artists’ opportunities, plus art listings, podcasts and more in the latest newsletter:

www.artmonthly.co.uk/newsletters →

[image: Jazmin Jones, Seeking Mavis Beacon, 2024, screening, 2pm Sun 1 Feb, Chapter, Cardiff]

#artjobs

Delivered to your door:
www.artmonthly.co.uk

Quarterly recurring subscriptions from only £13:
www.artmonthly.co.uk/direct-debit

Instant access to all 493 issues:
exacteditions.com/artmonthly

Institutions:
institutions.exacteditions.com/art-monthly

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TAKING ART APART SINCE 1976

#art

Art Monthly magazine February issue with a cover featuring a close-up photograph of a pair of beetles mating overlaid with a descriptive subtitle that reads: (dramatic orchestral music)

Art Monthly, Issue 493, February 2026

• Christina Mackie – interviewed by Chris Fite-Wassilak

• Sick at Art – Sophie J Williamson

• Art and Contested Memory – Bob Dickinson

• Leah Clements – Tom Denman

+ news, views, reviews and more…

[cover: El Morgan, ‘Have you had a productive day?’, 2023]

‘Global Fascisms’, Haus der Kulturen Welt, Berlin – Rachel Pronger

Only in the Dec–Jan Art Monthly

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[image: Robin Rhode, ‘Implis I-XIII’, 2000]

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A pristine police riot helmet is displayed on a plinth, light glinting off its visor.

“The curator talks about moving beyond apocalyptic thinking, yet by declaring every contemporary ill somehow ‘fascist’, this exhibition falls into that very trap. Given the dire straits to which current politics has brought the world, art-induced apathy is another indulgence we cannot afford.”

I have a review of Keith Sawyer’s fascinating book Learning To See in the Dec/Jan issue of @artmonthly.bsky.social magazine. And this prompted me to think of the key books on learning and teaching that I am always recommending to staff at Norwich University of the Arts. #CreativeEducation

🎨 Publishing since 1976, @artmonthly.bsky.social is the UK’s leading magazine of contemporary visual art, with in-depth features, interviews, and coverage of major trends by independent critics.

👀 Browse the complete Art Monthly archive on Exact Editions.

Saodat Ismailova – Profile by Maria Walsh

Only in the Dec–Jan Art Monthly

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[image: Saodat Ismailova, ‘Melted Into the Sun’, 2024]

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A video still of a desert landscape at dusk where several distant figures stand on an ancient ruin while holding discs that reflect the sun at the camera.

“The film’s main protagonist is based on Al-Muqanna (The Veiled One), an 8th‑century mystic and revolutionary in southern Central Asia, who challenged authoritarian centralised power, land‑extraction and religious repression, all pressing global social issues to this day.”

A film still of a person tending an allotment behind wire fencing.

January art jobs, residencies, grants, exhibitions and other artists’ opportunities, plus art listings, podcasts and more in the latest newsletter:

www.artmonthly.co.uk/newsletters →

[image: Frederick Wiseman, ‘Public Housing’, 1997, screening at the ICA, London, 7.50pm 15 Jan]

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From the Back Catalogue: ‘The New Curation’ – Mark Hutchinson argues that new approaches to curating aestheticise politics

First published 2004
Read for free now:
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[image: Celine Condorelli and Gavin Wade, ‘Support Structure’, 2003-04, Chisenhale Gallery]

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Two photographs of panel structures placed in a gallery setting.

“For a politicised faction of Conceptual Art, the curator was the enemy: a bureaucratic manager complicit in the process of the institutionalisation, normalisation and recuperation of artistic production; someone whose job was to come between art and its projected community.”

‘Who Cares?’ – Chris Clarke argues for the need to demystify curation and to interrogate the empty claims of care by art institutions and their agents

Only in the Dec–Jan Art Monthly

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[image: Andrea Fraser, ‘Little Frank and His Carp’, 2001]

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A video still of the artist grinding provocatively against the wall of a museum designed by starchitect Frank Gehry while listening to an audio guide.

“There is seemingly no contradiction between the museum which, on the one hand, proudly declares its progressive agenda while, on the other, furloughs its workers, curtails hours and trims wages.”

‘Creating a Stink’ – Francis Frascina explores the unruly power of creating a stink, aesthetically and politically

Only in the Dec–Jan Art Monthly

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[image: Helen Chadwick urine casting in 1991]

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