Sitemap - 2025 - Blackbird Rook’s Substack
The Signal and the Static - Why So Much Contemporary Art Looks the Same
Is Being a Collector Embarrassing?
Last call - a Christmas present for someone who really cares about contemporary art
What We Do When the Jobs Run Out
After the Centre Collapses - a thought experiment
A Stranger World - Notes on the Modern Uncanny
Outside the Studio - A Field Guide to Being an Artist Today
What Remains of the Day: Notes from a Near-Spectator
The Soft Sell With a Hard Edge
The Collector’s Guide to Contemporary Art – Part Two
The Long Life of a Painting - How to See a Century Ahead
The Art of the Con: Selling “Investment” Art
Inside the Studio: What’s Really Going On?
Being an Artist (Again): Lessons from The Bear
The Death of the Plot? Art in the Age of Content
The Collector’s Guide to Contemporary Art - Part One
Comedy or Catastrophe? The Futures We Keep Rehearsing
From Constables to K-Drama: The New Rules of Taste
The Art Collector’s Starter Kit: Curiosity Required, Millions Optional
Birdsong in the Machine: What I Learned Curating Digital Art (and Does It Still Matter?)
Worth Seeing: How to Recognise Good Art in an Age of Noise.
Why Buying a Painting Beats Whitewater Rafting
How to Collect in an Age of Spectacle
Is It a Good Investment? (And Should That Be Your First Question?)
After the End of the World (Again)
On Master of None, and the Art of Not Knowing
The Artist's Role in a Fragmented World
Lit from Within, Worn at the Edges
Hannah Murgatroyd, Milly Thompson and Painting Midlife
Half-Built Worlds: A reflection after Mark Connolly on the persistence of unfinished ideas.
The Shallow Eye: Art in the Age of Diminished Attention
When Nature Absorbs the Machine
When Contemporary Art Led Britain’s Culture – and Why It Should Again
A great collection isn’t about acquiring objects
Trust, Transparency, and Trickery: Surviving the Secondary Art Market
Specimens in Flux: Mark Fairnington and the Poetics of Imperfection
Redefining Art Advisory: A More Inclusive Future for Artists and Collectors
From Artist to Art Advisor – A Personal Reflection
Rethinking Art in the Age of Automation
John Finneran and Auerbach’s paintings of place
Artistic Legacy - Jim Cheatle and the Forgotten Masters
The Weight of Objects: How Artists Transform Motifs Through Repetition