Tate gift shop offers Damien Hirst merchandise at eye-watering prices

The final room in the Damien Hirst show at the Tate is a gift shop where visitors can find a range of items at eye-watering prices including a £36,800 skull, a set of china plates for £10,500, a deck chair for £310, an umbrella for £195, butterfly-print wallpaper at £700 a roll and for those on a budget, a set of coloured circular spot magnets at £14.95.
Image: Damien Hirst cup and saucer at £12.50 each or £60 for a set of 6

Con Art thinking out of favour at the Tate?

If you are wondering why the Tate banned Con Art author Julian Spalding from the Hirst exhibition, you may find the answer in his opinion piece for the Independent on conceptual art (he says it's art that cons people) and Damien Hirst as a sub-prime artist. Read more...

Hirst critic denied entry to the Tate show

The Independent reports days after it published his condemnation of Hirst as a "con artist" whose art is "worthless" financially and artistically, Julian Spalding (author of the book Con Art - Why You Ought To Sell Your Damien Hirsts While You Can) was denied entry to the Tate's Hirst exhibition. Spalding had turned up at the request of the BBC and two German TV stations only to be informed that the Tate would not allow the interviews. "The Tate's job is to encourage debate about art," he said. The fact that I'm not allowed to talk about the work in front of it is extraordinary."
Image: Damien Hirst at the opening of his Tate show

Tate buys 10 tonnes of Ai Weiwei's sunflower seeds

The Tate has acquired 10 tonnes of Ai Weiwei's sunflower seeds - around one tenth of the 100 million seeds individually crafted by Chinese craft workers for his 2010 Tate Modern Turbine Hall installation. The artist has suggested that the seeds can be arranged either laid out as a square or a cone 5m in diameter and 1.5m high.
Image: Ai Weiwei in Sunflower Seeds (2010) at the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall,

Tate and BMW team up to work with virtual space

The Tate is teaming up with BMW to commission performances exclusively for live broadcast from 2012. The four-year programme will be a virtual version of the ambitious art installations that the Tate Modern presents in its Turbine Hall and will focus on performance, interdisciplinary art and curating digital space. Read more...

Artists donate Artangel collection to the Tate

A collection of film and video artworks by artists including Jeremy Deller, Douglas Gordon, Steve McQueen and Catherine Yass is to be donated to the Tate.

Artangel, which this year celebrates its 20th birthday, announced the creation of the Artangel collection, which will be looked after by the Tate and made available to galleries and museums across the UK. Read more...

Image: Still from Catherine Yates' film High Wire which features the French high-wire artist Didier Pasquette