Diaries

Victoria Comstock-Kershaw begins with two visits – to Villa Kérylos on the Côte d'Azur and the Poldi Pezzoli in Milan – and the question they produced: where is the twenty-first century equivalent of a rich person organising their entire life around a conviction about beauty? From Federico da Montefeltro's studiolo through the Grand Tour galleries and Victorian country houses, to Alec Monopoly, KAWS figurines and Kim K’s knockoff Donald Judds, she argues that the contemporary ultra-rich are fundamentally incapable of patronage in any meaningful sense.

What more can the arts ecosystem provide for artists working in war zones? How can publications offer a spotlight to artists whose identities must remain hidden? Ruminating on these questions, Sophie Howe connects with Affsoongar, a visual artist from Tehran, in brief moments of internet access despite the digital blackout in Iran.

“Who are you? What do you know? Are you sellable?” Artist, Anna Lauree reflects on two open studio days at the Royal College of Art, the vague questioning, the anonymity, the feeling of being a shop rather than an artist, and asks whether there's any etiquette that can bridge the gap between early career artists and the industry professionals circling them.

Modern science increasingly serves the fantasies of the ultra-wealthy, but there’s more to technological futurism than cheating death and maximising profits. Artists are working with ecological systems, quantum physics, and ancient navigation tools in order to propose a dual-pronged approach to the act of creation. Yasmin Alrabiei speaks to the artists and curators finding those meeting points, and asks what discovery actually owes to the poetics in between.

Anna Moss has flinched at one too many badly designed exhibition posters. Now, she makes the case by speaking to architects, spatial designers and fashion critics about why the art world needs to look outward to get its own house in order.

Can we separate art from artist? Victoria Comstock-Kershaw argues that we not only can, but must, and that refusing to do so is making criticism weaker, culture flatter, and all of us a little bit stupider - and makes the case for Kanye West and Jay-Z’s 2011 album ‘Watch the Throne’ as the greatest piece of twenty-first century art.

The artist residency is one of the few things in the art world that artists will defend with genuine warmth. It can change your practice, your network, your sense of what you're even making work for. It can also cost you a month of lost income, a donated work and a $25 application fee for something that turns out to be a big fat scam. Underregulated, uneven and increasingly crowded with programmes that range from life-changing to exploitative, we set out to work out whether the artist residency is actually worth it.

What's your artwork actually worth? A 2024 study analysed 34,000 auction sales and found that the visual qualities of an artwork barely influence its price. The honest answer involves your social network, your collectors' net worth, and a behavioural economics concept called the endowment effect. We asked artists, gallerists, and researchers how to approach the ever-difficult task of pricing.

The private view is one of the art world's most beloved institutions, and also one of its most contradictory. It's supposed to be about the work, but it’s also about free wine, the right eyes on the work, and enough social anxiety to warrant a Xanax on entry. Sam Moore speaks to the gallerists and artists navigating that tension, one glass of warm white wine at a time, to ask what – and who – the private view is really for.

From refusal to rite of passage, the solo exhibition has travelled a long way. Once a workaround for artists shut out of academies and salons, it now sits at the centre of how careers are built, valued, and remembered. Drawing on conversations with artists, curators, and gallerists, Victoria Comstock-Kershaw traces the history of the solo show from acts of artistic insubordination to today’s prestige format, asking whether one artist in one room can still be a space for experimentation rather than expectation.

Past the jet lag but still under the spell of the opening-to-opening sprint, guest author Zaida Violan writes from Mexico City Art Week 2026 to exalt an artist-to-artist economy built on shared resources, informal networks, and collective momentum.

Writer and curator Anna Moss asks a brutal question: should good artists be allowed to make bad work? From David Sylvester’s defence of “dud experiments” to the market’s intolerance for risk, this piece traces why we treat “bad” as a career-ending verdict—and what it would take to rebuild a culture of play.

Writing about being asked to speak at the ICA in 1977 for a conference on the Crisis in British Art, Victor Burgin said the following: “I never did learn what the ‘Crisis in British Art’ was; nor, I suspect, did anyone else. In retrospect I now see a textbook example of what psychoanalysis terms projection: the crisis sensed was not in ‘art’ but in criticism itself.” Writing in early 2026, we set out to speak to critics to find out just how this crisis has mutated, and whether there’s any hope for those of wanting to trust critics again.

It’s sometimes difficult to know how to judge a show in Condo. Is it solely down to the art, or is it the way the host space and visiting gallery create a new context together? The following shows, presented in no particular order, demonstrate in my humble but correct opinion the many kinds of “good” you can find across this year's exhibitions. This is less a definitive ranking than a small taxonomy of Condo success: sometimes it’s host/guest alchemy and the generation of a third thing; sometimes it’s simply two strong programmes sharing space; sometimes it’s a pairing that only makes sense once you’re in the room - and sometimes it’s just pure visual pleasure.

Happy 2026 everyone! As we all know, ins and outs lists are boring and passé, unless they’re yours. I’ve gathered a few of my own predictions for the coming year.

Is the internet the best cultural infrastructure we’ve ever built, or the reason everyone’s making the same work, saying the same things, and spiralling in public? brave speaks to artists across generations about what social media gives, what it takes, and what’s left

Exhibitions don’t appear by magic. They are built through relationships, timing, labour and decisions most artists are never taught to read. Victoria Comstock-Kershaw looks at how shows actually come together, and why understanding the structure matters more than believing the myth.

“I wouldn't be where I am without art school.... But then again I wouldn't be where I am without art school.” Art schools promise community, credibility and a career. Most artists get debt, precarity and a second job. Victoria Comstock-Kershaw talks to artists, advisors and curators to ask: in 2025, is art school still worth it - or is the work all that really matters?