A likeness of Kate Moss cast in gold and potentially weighing more than Kate Moss is just one of the figures that will be featured at the British Museum from 4 October. The statue by Marc Quinn (who famously created a bust of himself from eight pints of his own blood) is for the exhibition Statuephilia. Weighing in at 50kg, the British Museum has only released an extreme close-up shot of the statue, so......

Bouffant hairdos at the ready? Wham look set to reform with two concerts (only) scheduled for Earls Court. A baby is to be buried 21 years after he died, although his parents are still disputing the cause of death. Damien Hirst is having a bit of a clear out. Knife-crime: Boris invests £700,000 in two programmes designed to help youngsters. A homeless woman has been arrested on suspicion of arson following a fire at......

Interesting concept this. What would Martian anthropologists make of us Earth-dwellers if all they had to go on were examples of contemporary art? The Barbican Art Gallery, disguised as a museum on the red planet, plays out this indulgence in a new exhibition. Those crafty aliens have bagged some prize exhibits. Warhol, Hepworth, Hirst - and a Henry Moore maquette, covered in molluscs for some reason. Dozens of cultural relics are scattered around in......

The Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland are about to see their collections bolstered. London art dealer Anthony D'Offay announced that he would be giving a collection of 725 works of modern art to the galleries at their original ticket price. Estimated at a value of £125 million, D'Offay is asking for the £28 million he originally paid for the pieces. His reason? He's doing it for the kids. The collection will be......

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......

Damien Hirst's most expensive piece has been sold for £50 Million. The famous diamond encrusted skull titled 'For The Love Of God' went for the full asking price and all we know is that it was sold to an 'investment group'. Don't worry. If you were planning on snapping it up yourself but just missed the boat, they plan on selling it in a couple of years. What amazes Londonist is that they're apparently......

Elvis lookalike caught selling guns. Presumably will soon be doing the jailhouse rock. Choose the 'first record' to be played at Wembley. Damien Hirst and others design new deckchairs for Royal Parks. They're dead good. Police building database of dogging/cruising spots around London. Would you like us to map this? The Olympics are apparently a 'magnet' for sexual activity. Just don't mention rings. Introducing Michelin, the hugely inflated hedgehog. Image courtesy of See Wah......

Take a slice of Mayan history, a chunk of Dolce & Gabbana, a liberal dash of De Beers, and a shot of Ali G. Mix in the mind of a British artist, and what do you get? A diamond-encrusted skull expected to be sold soon as the highest priced piece of art by a living artist, that's what! Currently on display at the White Cube gallery in St James's, Damien Hirst's For The Love......

"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......

You can't buy happiness... but you can certainly buy things that will bring you happiness. An artwork by a leading British artist, for example, at a really good price could put a smile on a your face and a corresponding spring in your step. Nice artworks by big names at affordable prices - who doesn't love an "everything must go" sale? The next Damien Hirst could be lurking among the items being sold at......

Workers on the DLR are to be balloted for strikes after a row over pay. Despite the recent rain it looks like we're still in a bit of a drought. A collection of Albert Einstein's papers will go on sale next month for around £800,000. A new Damien Hirst staue, the Virgin Mother, has been unveiled at the Royal Academy of Arts. It's 35ft tall. Kate Moss has beaten up Doherty at his London......

Although fine arts are less our forte than appaling puns, Londonist nonetheless found itself wandering along the South Bank on Saturday, email print out in one hand, friend in the other, searching for the Oxo Tower and Bargehouse and War Child's Picture This exhibition. Admittedly we were drawn by the idea of seeing some real life Stanley Donwood work as much as anything (he's the dude that does the Radiohead artwork), and for nish......

Alas, Londonist never got to visit the biscuit city deep in the bowels of Selfridges. Nor did we witness the desperate scramble and crumb-laden aftermath as the edible artwork was scoffed yesterday. It all sounds rather bonkers. Once the first building was toppled, there was no stopping the ravenous audience. Within a few minutes the edible high-rise business district had gone the way of the shortbread and wafer Forbidden City. And the following quote......

Did anyone read the interview with Damien Hirst in yesterday's Observer magazine? It was mostly about Hirst getting drunk in Mexico and preparing to offend an awful lot of Catholics with some dead sheep, a few human skulls and some rosary beads, but there was this one little titbit towards the end of the article: When I met him, [Hirst] had just received planning permission for his other big property venture - the creation......

The eighteenth annual London Art Fair is on at the Business Design Centre in Islington today and this weekend, showcasing some of the best of Modern British and Contemporary Art. Ninety eight galleries are taking part this year’s fair - the place oozes art. When Londonist had a sneak preview this week, they were still putting the finishing touches to the displays and we half expected to see an artist here and there applying......

There's a lot of good points made (albeit in a rather colourful way) in an article over in today's BBC magazine about speeding in urban areas. Children's author and traffic campaigner, Ted Dewan, has hit upon the idea of "folk traffic calming" or as Sean Coughlan reports it where art installations meet road safety, a kind of sleeping policeman that's been influenced by Damien Hirst. The idea is to put "traffic witches" in the......

Think And Wonder, Wonder And Think... sounds like one of those schools' television programmes you used to get in the Eighties doesn't it? You can almost imagine an overly-enthusiastic man and woman wearing brightly-patterned jumpers, erecting a wobbly structure made of pipe cleaners which is supposed to represent the human digestive tract or something. In fact Think and Wonder, Wonder and Think is the new exhibition at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green,......

OK, we know the bus routes are dangerous, so what's a viable alternative? Well, last time we checked, incidences of piracy on the Thames were at an all time low, so Londonist would suggest getting a boat. The Standard is reporting today that "high-speed commuting" from Chelsea to Docklands might be on the cards thanks to a £1.5 million venture capital investment in the Thames Clippers company. Thames Clippers already runs a daily service......

While attending the London Art Fair at the weekend, we were recounting an article from The Times regarding the sale of The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living aka "The Shark" by Damien Hirst. Hirst is considered one of Britain's leading contemporary artists. He is best known of course for his encapsulations of animals and everyday environments in glass boxes, his "dot" series, and his failed attempt at a restaurant......

Is there a collective noun for deities? You know, like a murder of crows or a smack of jellyfish? Maybe not, after all there is only one God right (as opposed to many gods)? Well, if you get down to the ICA over the next few months you'll find exactly 100 Gods (or should that be 'gods', wow who knew this theological stuff could be so confusing?). 100 Artists See God, which opens today,......

We like it when London's more snooty establishment go a bit populist so we were glad to read that Christie's is aiming itself at the upper echelons of the geek community with its massive auction of "entertainment memorabilia" next month. Of all the catalogue highlights, the Imperial Stormtrooper's helmet which was made for Star Wars and was also used in The Empire Strikes Back, has to be the geekiest. It's also one of the priciest......

The Young British Art Phenomenon has come in for a lot of stick over the years. Hirst, Emin and Turk et al have been accused of shallow shock tactics, cruelty to animals, and making themselves comfortable in the pocket of Charles Saatchi. But last week Damien Hirst manged to surprise everyone who thought the YBA fad has died a death years ago, by auctioning off the contents of his failed restaurant venture Pharmacy for a......