Damien Hirst's ABC book is cynical and culturally pointless, but it might just make a valuable impression regardless
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera make awkward companions at a nonetheless important Paris exhibition
The Spode factory in Stoke-on-Trent may have closed in 2008, but the British Ceramics Biennial looks to the future of the medium
Pierre Huyghe's work isn't made for a gallery space, but an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou brings it inside anyway
The Hamburger Bahnhof looks at 20th-century attitudes to the future, but didn't foresee some of the problems of its chosen approach
A new book on Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ memorial to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry sheds light on its legacy and shortcomings
An exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe's fashion photography proves that he was at his best focusing on the nude
Leonora Carrington may be a 'literary painter' and a surrealist storyteller, but we should not forget the formal qualities that underpin her best work
Carefully staged celebrity portraits by Jonathan Yeo and Michael Peto are on display at the National Portrait Gallery
The mandrake screams when it is uprooted: Francis Upritchard's strange uprooted outsiders seem to have given up the fight
The Musée d'Orsay's exhibition of male nudes is almost a great show, but it misses a timely opportunity to explore homoerotic sentiment in art
An exhibition at the Bowes Museum proves that Laura Ashley's influence lives on
An exhibition at the Frick Collection ostensibly celebrates David d'Angers' monumental sculpture, but his small medallions steal the show
There's history behind the V&A's 'Pearls' exhibition, its partnership with the Qatar Museums Authority, and its aptly-named sponsor, Shell
Jordaens has languished in the shadow of Rubens and Van Dyck, but an exhibition at the Petit Palais brings the artist back into the spotlight
'Désirs et Volupté', a selection of Victorian art from the Pérez Simón collection at the Musée Jacquemart-André, won't be to everyone's taste
New galleries continue to open in the east of London, despite rueful talk of the area's artistic demise
Laura Knight is undoubtedly an important figure in British art and history; she's just not a particularly inspiring painter
Francis Bacon wins the latest bout between artistic heavyweights, against Henry Moore at the Ashmolean
Tate's long-awaited exhibition makes an ambitious but confused attempt to bring Lowry in from the cold
Roisin Astell speaks with some of this year's exhibitors and bumps into Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood...
He may be more famous for his sculptural work, but Richard Serra's etchings at the Alan Cristea Gallery carry their own weight.
Georg Baselitz's powerful sculptures and paintings acquire a slick black gloss at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac's Paris Pantin Space
The Saatchi Gallery's latest exhibition promises great things, but too many works fail to deliver
