Breakfast with the FT: Nicholas Penny

“The National Gallery’s great advantage is that we are obliged to give prominence to works of art that are important in the collection but don’t mean much to people today,” he says cheerfully. Conceptual works by trendy names – notably installations by Conrad Shawcross and Mark Wallinger alongside Titian in 2012 – have entered the […]

Lunch with the FT: Jake and Dinos Chapman

The not-so-young British artists on provocation, prostitution and spicy soup Jake picks up a paper napkin. “The second that Martin Creed does that” – he crumples up the napkin – “then it’s worth £50,000 or whatever. The point is there has to be some sort of syndicative agreement that if he or she does it” […]

Lunch with the FT: Jay Jopling

The art dealer talks about his rise from selling fire extinguishers to making household names of Britain’s YBAs. Standing on bohemian, buzzing Bermondsey Street in south London, outside Europe’s biggest commercial art gallery, its owner Jay Jopling gazes through a row of upright, painted steel fins that demarcates the courtyard. “I wanted a low wall, to be […]