‘The people from whom I learn most are enthusiasts, who take my soul to places I never knew existed.’

Jan Verwoert considers the history of Manifesta, European politics and whether an art exhibition can unlock the historical potential of a place

Jan Verwoert pays homage to Robert Linsley – a brilliant thinker, passionate painter and, moreover, a generous person

Jan Verwoert on friction between the creative worker and the local boardroom

On mimesis, art and alchemy

Calling capital’s bluff

The artist’s studio as a clue to decoding her work? Four decades of Hanne Darboven’s conceptual art and artefacts from her house in Hamburg are exhibited together for the first time

Do we live in an age of panicky materialism?

On the occasion of his retrospective in Karlsruhe, Werner Büttner talks to Jan Verwoert and Jörg Heiser about polemics and punchlines in more than three decades of work

Meaning, memory and mockery

How does Édouard Glissant’s demand for opacity translate into art? Jan Verwoert explores opacity as a model for open communication – and outlines a history, which runs from Lygia Clark’s sculptures to Trisha Donnelly’s enigmatic films

Is the art world too exclusive?

On soft facts, hard eggs and sweet lies

Spirits, objecthood and the ‘Black Forest voodoo’ of Geoffrey Farmer’s mirages and micro-events

On the value of nursing, education and culture

Mixing poetry with pop songs, Karl Holmqvist has created a brand-new medium: the drag-performance

Advocate or Informer? Julian Assange and WikiLeaks

Someone who cared

On the power of metaphors to bring about change

The strange persistence of class difference in art