David F. McAllister (b. 92) is a writer and editor from Edinburgh.



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



ii. Criticism

Troll of the tropics
On Mário de Andrade

Reasons to linger
On Aidan Koch’s Spiral & Other Stories

Companion figures
On the Two Roberts

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

Art after Ovid
On the Rijksmuseum’s Metamorphoses



iii. Interviews

As humans, we never really want just a perfect answer
Ai Weiwei

Conservatives must avoid seeming obsessed with money
Maurice Saatchi

It’s not about just being a photographer
Don McCullin

The criticism felt as though people weren’t giving the building the opportunity to be contemporarily valid
Annabelle Selldorf

The biggest challenge was to make the audience feel their complicity
Richard Mosse



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