Art lovers: brace yourselves for the onslaught of tutting, snorting and Daily Mail outrage that breaks out every summer. That's right - the Turner Prize shortlist was announced this morning. Mark Leckey is the biggest name on a list with no celebrity artists on it; his combinations of film, performance and sculpture have made him odds-on favourite with the bookies already, and the obsession with Felix the Cat in his work should get him......

Damien Hirst has made the Tate's Christmas by gifting them 4 of his art works. The infamous cow and calf bisected and suspended in formaldehyde, "Mother and Child Divided" is the Turner Prize winning crowning glory. This is a high profile donation, timed for maximum festivity and goodwill but Hirst's generosity is not spontaneous or even his own idea. He pledged works to the Tate back in 2004 as part of the Building the......

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,......

The Turner Prize may have been spirited away to Liverpool but Mark Wallinger's recreation of Brian Haw's protest camp outside the Houses of Parliament pre-SOPCA nailed the Turner Prize for him last night. Although he chose to exhibit himself dressed as a bear, wandering around a gallery in Germany for the prize exhibition it was clear that the judges awarded the annually controversial £25,000 gong to Wallinger on the merits of his "bold political......

To celebrate the rebranding of the Platform for Art initiative as Art on the Underground, TfL are giving away specially commissioned posters at 5 Zone 1 tube stations all next week (bound to be a bunfight on Monday though, be prepared). Among the artists is Turner Prize nominated Mark Titchner and poster designs include a fictitious A-Z map and some snow capped mountains. 25,000 of each design have been produced and will be stacked......

We nearly always mention the monthly Late at Tate Friday nights because each month the events, ideas and people involved are more weird and wonderful than the last. It's all about winning this month in Late at Tate Britain: Jackpot. Winning and prize-giving is consuming the various Tate Galleries as the annual Turner Prize exhibition of shortlisted artists is relocated to Tate Liverpool. In Tate Britain, there's the Turner Prize: A Retrospective exhibition instead......

Channel 4 is 25 years old in November hence the glorious retro branding and Richard Whiteley era-Countdown appearing on TV. Famous for bringing close-ups of willies, tits and countless controversial things into the living rooms of thousands, it's rightfully celebrating a quarter-century of good reasons to stay in on Friday nights and legendary water-cooler moments. A special off-screen marker of 25 years of success is unveiled today outside the TV station's headquarters. A towering......

Fight the temptation to sneak under the duvet tomorrow night - it may be getting dark ever earlier and there's a definite hiding-under-duvet chill in the crisp air but fight! Resist! Protest! Agitate! Agitate: Late at Tate Britain! The first Friday of every month is the special late opening of Tate Britain and there have been some very good themed nights to kick off the weekend in style - the burlesque evening, the village......

The tube loves throwing money at art almost as much as it loves making money from big corporate advertising. Platform for Art is TFL’s public art programme and its latest commission sees Turner Prize winner Liam Gillick’s work on the new cover for the tube map - the design shows the words of the date of the last day in London without the Underground network: Friday 9 January 1863, done in the 12 colours......

Martin Creed: he turned the lights on and off and won the Turner Prize in 2001. He crumpled a sheet of plain A4 paper into a ball and exhibited it as Work No. 88. He filmed people being sick in a pristine, anonymous white room which people watched with the usual furrowed brow and stoic "gallery face." He has a new solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Coppermill in East London. He's done his......

Art prizes always create controversy; people seem to love to hate them and the media is so practiced at producing outraged copy about pickled sheep, elephant dung paintings, lights flicking on and off, unmade beds and other shock tactics of the YBA scene that there must be an automatic "critics column" generator out there somewhere. One of the bolder art prizes, still in its infancy being under 10 years old is about to face......

This is great. Brian Haw's protest has been transformed into art and that art itself forms a fresh protest: Now former Turner Prize nominee Mark Wallinger has recreated the protestor's camp, and his banners, in the Tate. The gallery falls within a 1km zone around Parliament in which unauthorised demonstrations are prohibited. Wallinger has placed his exhibition, called State Britain, half inside and half outside the exclusion zone - which is marked on the......

In deference to the Turner Prize, we decided to make this week's entry a work of abstract art. Viz, four very famous London landmarks as Turner, with his notoriously dodgy eyesight, might have seen them. Isn't Photoshop truly the wonder of the modern age? Keep on sending your distorted images of the capital to londonist - at - gmail - dot - com......

Tomma Abts has become the first female painter to win the £25,000 Turner Prize. She was awarded the prize last night by Yoko Ono in a ceremony held at Tate Britain. The run-up to the event was dogged with the usual controversy - the Stuckists had a bit of a protest outside the gallery and one of the judges, Lynn Barber, said the judging process was so farcical that it has seriously 'dampened her......

The Big Chill is a multi-media festival, bar, club event, record label and lifestyle "dedicated to transforming the spirit of our times"... and they're taking over Tate Britain for the monthly Late at Tate. DJs will play live sets dotted around the artworks, there's a bar, animation, live performances and readings, and entry to the Holbein in England and the Turner Prize exhibitions are half-price. Late at Tate - The Big Chill, Friday 1......

There's not much more to say about the weekend ahead except... "Whoosh! Whee! Bang! fffsssssssssstttttt....POW!" It's Bonfire Night so London is going to be quite preoccupied with either getting as close as possible to some pyrotechnic displays or heading for the hills far away from the fireworks. In case you need any other distractions between now and Monday, here's a slightly truncated Culture Crawl for those who would rather get their thrills from non-exploding......

There's a yard behindThe Old Blue Last, off Great Eastern Street, that frankly makes our eyes bleed. For anyone on the prowl for weird and wonderful street art (and it's not just us, right?), this is untouchable. Stenciler El Chivo provides the colourful backdrop, flytippers provide the furniture, and the Tate Britain should be providing a Turner Prize. Superb.......

"The annual farce of the Turner Prize is now as inevitable in November as is the pantomime at Christmas." - Brian Sewell, The Evening Standard, 19 November 1992 The Turner Prize is "intended to promote public discussion of new developments in contemporary British art." This rather lofty decription of the award's intention tends to translate each year into tabloid indignation about how rubbish, elitist and silly modern art is. There will be the inevitable......

It's time for another Londonist Culture Crawl though in the current hot weather, the temptation to slump into a sticky puddle of distinctly uncultured gloop is rather overwhelming. Nonetheless, for those armed with enough Friday 7 July Being the first Friday of the month, go along to Tate Britain for the July Friday Late. This Friday is the return of the South West Fest Party - an annual celebration of the SW1 community. Music......

Art collector Charles Saatchi's new gallery, at The Duke of York's Building in Chelsea, opens in April with a Tessa Farmer collection entitled 'Swarm'. And that's exactly what you get. A swarm of frickin' insects. But shaped like humans. Argh! The appropriately named Farmer has harvested the wing parts from countless little beasties, and glued them to delicate twig skeletons to form 'evil fairies'. Presumably to scare the Bejesus out of any landlord who......

Gary Hume has made a Christmas tree for the Tate Britain. Does it have tinsel? No. Pretty lights? No. Bows and bells and little red ribbons? No. What does it have then? Um, metal blackbirds. Metal blackbirds waiting in the branches with their little metal claws… "The former Turner Prize nominee chose a traditional Nordmania spruce tree,” explains the Independent, "and decorated it with a flock of hand-painted, stencil-cut birds made from steel plate.......

We -- well, those of us of a certain persuasion -- adore the melange of high-brow interviews and low-brow gay porn to be found in BUTT magazine (and we're not the only ones), and so we squealed little a little girl when we read that the creators of BUTT were coming out with a "gentlemen's style journal" to be called FANTASTIC MAN. After a frustrating delay, a pile has finally arrived at Soho's depressing......

Art Fortnight London 2005 promises to involve a little bit of everything in the art world. Their press release boasts that Art Fortnight is “a major event in the art-world timetable….[and] it has organised a comprehensive and sophisticated cultural programme for visitors to the capital, bringing museums, auction houses, and a range of public and private galleries together to form a powerful partnership.” This is already sounding like an event for collectors with a......

The Turner Prize shortlist was announced today and, while most of the media seem to be shocked that someone who paints flowers has made it through, there are some other interesting names on the list. Darren Almond is a bit like the Alex Garland of the art world - very moody and introspective. You might remember his A Real Time project which included live footage of his own empty studio displayed on a big......

If last month you were annoyed to find the side of your car scratched and wished you could get your hands on the twat responsible then you may be in luck. Not only do we know who did it we can also offer the consolation that the damage was actually a work of art. Mark McGowan, the artist who nailed his feet to a wall in protest against leaves and pushed a nut with......

Another installment in Tomoko Takahashi’s projects at the Serpentine, this weekend on Sunday get to the Gallery starting at 10:00 am and walk away with a piece of her installation (created uniquely for the space). Whether this is an attempt to help the public become more in touch with art or just help the Serpentine Staff clear the space quickly we aren't sure, but we will be there either way.(For more information on her......

Wednesday night on Channel 4 and you can't really miss watching a TV programme with that title - specially when you know it's not going to be about pantomime Dames or David Beckham's latest "fashion" statement. The documentary was hosted by Turner Prize winning artist Grayson Perry who we probably all remember going to pick up his prize in a little baby doll dress, complete with puffed sleeves and full petticoats.......

Freeness looks to be Pop Idol minus everything but the music and with the added perk that the music is the artist's own, not just covers – so actually, not Pop Idol at all, but keep reading anyway. Freeness is hitting Plastic People on Curtain Road on January 26 (that's Wednesday for the calendar inept) for one night only. London is the first of 10 stops on its quest to help modern producers and......

Londonist was interested to read Simon Hoggart's 'diary' piece in this Saturday's Guardian which gave an interesting insight into the world of London cyclists. Reacting to Turner Prize winner, Jeremy Deller's dedication 'to everyone who cycles in London" last week, Hoggart felt the need to redress the balance in favour of "all the pedestrians maimed or nearly killed" by London bike riders. Who can he mean? "I mean the hooligans who look as if......

Television's Kirsty Allsopp, property transition guru and ambassador for wearers of strangely coloured tights everywhere, has landed herself a job at Tate Britain. Initial reports that Kirsty had fallen on hard times and had been employed by the gallery as a security guard are, it turns out, untrue. Far from sitting on a chair in the corner of a rooom looking bored and occasionally glowering at small children, Kirsty is to give a series......