David F. McAllister (b. 92) is a writer and editor based in London.
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i. Essays
Multiple lives, one John Akomfrah
On forty years of filming difference
What Annie Ernaux owes to memory
On a Nobel prize winner
Ithell Colquhoun’s flight from modernity
On Cornwall and ancient custom
Van Gogh’s constant search for God
On the colour of infinity
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ii. Reviews & criticism
Troll of the tropics
On Mário de Andrade
Reasons to linger
On Aidan Koch’s Spiral & Other Stories
Painting the Klan
On Tate Modern’s Philip Guston
Glasgow kisses
On Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo
Scots without Scotland
On Murray Pittock’s Scotland: The Global History
The battle between England’s interwar architects
On Gavin Stamp’s Interwar: British Architecture 1919-39
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iii. Interviews
As humans, we never really want just a perfect answer
Ai Weiwei
The imagination is a really generous space
Michael Rakowitz
Conservatives must avoid seeming obsessed with money
Maurice Saatchi
Work is just a flimsy excuse to meet people
Cornelia Parker
The biggest challenge was to make the audience feel their complicity
Richard Mosse
The criticism felt as though people weren’t giving the building the opportunity to be contemporarily valid
Annabelle Selldorf
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iv. Columns
Jack Vettriano’s art was bad, but that’s a good thing
On the virtue of kitsch
For men, online dating is a tall order
On average height
Care about social mobility? Don’t send your kids to Oxbridge
On networks of privilege
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