No longer the best advert for good art

Pierre d’Alancaisez | The Critic | 5th February 2026

Is contemporary art “stuck”? If so, is that because artists can’t imagine the future or because they are held back by “legacy cultural institutions”? Such issues are an unintended highlight of a survey at London’s pioneering Saatchi gallery. Saatchi saw its role as encouraging “a reckless, speculative” production of art. Not much of the art that resulted was great, but the approach put an intense focus on the “now”. In contrast, art in 2026 is weighed down with culture war arguments about the past  A video (5 min) is here.