Opinion

A slew of new books discuss the social and political history of scent, from holy smokes to slave ships

Remi Weekes transposes the classic haunted house genre to a mouldering council flat inhabited by South Sudanese refugees

Charges of ‘attempted theft of a cultural asset’ against Congolese activist Mwazulu Diyabanza reveal the abyss of Europe’s self-referential legality

How Genshin Impact’s use of gambling and intimacy embody artist Lawrence Lek’s concept of ‘sinofuturism’

The author’s latest novel, ‘The Silence’, is full of questions with obvious answers

The prolific Beat poet, who died aged 86 on 25 October, left behind a powerful and ever-urgent call to action in her Revolutionary Letters

Since the beginning of the 20^th century, aerial technologies have lent the sky – and the birds that fly through it – with a threatening presence

The new Netflix documentary is a distraction from the drive to regulate tech companies, including Netflix itself

The filmmaker’s latest documentary, Swimming Out till the Sea Turns Blue, is an object study of the generations affected by industrialization

From the reconstructed City Palace to the Reichsflagge, the symbols and ideologies of colonialism are as alive as ever

The author's new novel is a smart, sharply observed critique of literary tropes and the art world

In London, shows by Bruce Nauman, Klara Lidén and Helen Cammock reflect on the pleasures and politics of idleness

‘Frog Pond Splash’, published 20 November by Siglio Press, presents four decades of the artist’s mail-art exchanges with poet William S. Wilson

The late US Supreme Court Justice was deeply moved by the sense of balance and musicality in the works by Josef Albers that hung in her chambers

In the age of Instagram, who owns our images?

Does the crowdfunding platform live up to its promise to ‘change the way art is valued?’

Emerging alternative spaces led by artists of colour leave a stagnant gallery system behind 

The gothic tales of notorious racist H.P. Lovecraft provide source material for HBO’s new show about ‘the hauntedness of Black life’

The first blockbuster to return to theatres demonstrates Hollywood’s eagerness to ‘exploit bodily presence for profit’ during the pandemic

How Spotify and YouTube gave rise to an indie pop ‘internet muzak’