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Will Gompertz Arts editor

A view from the wings - from the Strokes and the soaps to Bauhaus and Bach

Slump in corporate arts donations

Corporate and individual giving to the arts has plummeted according to the first UK Arts Index which shows that, between 2007 and 2010, corporate giving has plummeted by 17% and philanthropy is down by 13%.

I discussed the drop in art philanthropy with Sam West of the National Campaign of the Arts on the Today programme.

Martin Boyce wins the Turner prize

Here's my interview with this year's Turner Prize winner Martin Boyce. The 44-year-old claimed the £25,000 prize for his distinctive sculptural installations, which seek to create an urban landscape within the confines of the gallery space.

The ceremony was held at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, it is the first time the ceremony has been held outside a Tate venue.

Meryl Streep on playing Margaret Thatcher

Here's my interview with actress Meryl Streep in which she denies giving a sympathetic portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in new film The Iron Lady.

Streep, who is the most Oscar-nominated actress of all time, says that she wanted to "capture whatever it was that drew people to her and whatever it was that meant people have a special venom for her".

Will added analysis to:

'New' Austen portrait unearthed

This pencil portrait of a stern-looking regency woman was given to Dr Paula Byrne by her husband on April Fools Day.

He had purchased it from a well-known specialist, who was selling because an Austen expert had told him the image was not authentic. Dr Byrne thought differently and her efforts have led to several eminent experts concurring with her view, that it is a genuine portrait of Jane Austen.

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What is your word (or expression) of the year?

The lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) have come up with their Word of the Year. Actually, they haven't. They've come up with an expression - squeezed middle.

It was a term coined by Ed Miliband - not a person one instantly associates with wordsmithery - while in conversation with John Humphrys on the Today Programme. John, a man who takes a keen interest in the English language, asked what the Labour leader meant by squeezed middle. Mr Miliband gave a slightly faltering answer in which he mentioned something about the broad middle classes in this country who find themselves financially hard pressed.

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Sex Pistols' graffiti hailed by academics

Here's my report about recently discovered graffiti by Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten which may be of greater significance than the discovery of early Beatles recordings, academics have said.

Rotten, born John Lydon, drew on the walls of the band's London flat in 1975 after disliking a recent redecoration. Now, a paper in the journal Antiquity is suggesting the flat is an important historical and archaeological site.

Margate gallery: A success story

The new Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate has seen 300,000 people come through its doors in its first seven months, double the amount expected for the whole year.

Here's my report on the secret behind the gallery's economic, social and cultural success.

Will added analysis to:

Da Vinci show opens at National

These 'once in a lifetime' exhibitions are becoming part of everyday life. But this one really is something special.

Seven out of the nine Leonardo da Vinci paintings on display have never been shown publicly in this country before. It is the first - and quite possibly the last - time that the Louvre's The Virgin of the Rocks (1483-86) has ever left the French museum.

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How long do you need to look at a Leonardo?

"Ah, this must be the 'bad footballers' haircuts from the 1970s' gallery," said a well-known art historian as he entered the first room of the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery.

He then walked over to Leonardo's The Musician (1486), a painting that has never been seen in Britain before, and went nose-to-nose with the masterpiece with a mullet. And there he stayed for about 10 minutes, rocking backwards and forwards, before moving from side-to-side, and then finally stepping back four paces and eyeing up the small painting from distance. And then he repeated the exercise. Twice.

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Artists' Olympic posters unveiled

The first thing to notice about the posters is how abstract they are, and how they could be for the Olympics at any time.

I can't remember seeing posters for the Olympics that don't directly relate to the host city or country. At the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 it was clear they were referring to Spain's flag, and for Sydney's games, an athlete in the shape of boomerangs was a clear nod to Australia.

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Van Gogh 'did not kill himself'

Van Gogh: The Life consists of 900-plus well-written pages of intensely researched biographical detail about an artist who, in 10 prolific years, introduced an expressionistic style of painting that changed art forever.

In a short chapter at the end of the book, the authors start to make their case that Vincent van Gogh was shot by a 16-year old boy called Rene Secretan, who had a history of tormenting the troubled artist.

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Van Gogh death claim unconvincing

Van Gogh: The Life consists of 900-plus pages of intensely research biographical detail about an artist who, in 10 prolific years, introduced an expressionistic style of painting that changed art forever.

It is an important book, which has been well written by its two Pulitzer Prize-winning authors (won in 1991 for the biography of Jackson Pollock).

Will added analysis to:

Boyd to leave Shakespeare Company

They say the art of comedy is all in the timing. It is certainly a crucial factor in the art of staging a successful career. Go too soon and people think you weren't up to it; stay too long and nobody will remember why they hired you in the first place.

There are no golden rules to go by: instinct and opportunity tend to govern. Vikki Heywood and Michael Boyd seem to have decided that once they have completed their ten-year partnership at the end of next year, it will be time for them to leave the RSC.

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Does cinema film have a future?

Darren Aronofsky sat back on his sun-lounger and smiled broadly.

It was early September and the film director was a happy man.

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McCartney: Ordinary yet extraordinary

The New York City Ballet's (NYCB) home in the Lincoln Centre on New York's Upper West Side is one of the most majestic theatre spaces I have ever set foot in.

Designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee in 1964, to the specification of George Balanchine, the ballet company's inspirational founder, it is a near-perfect example of Manhattan's knack for mixing modernism and art deco to stunning effect.

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McCartney's debut at the ballet

Here's my interview with Sir Paul McCartney about the score that he's composed for the New York City Ballet's Ocean Kingdom.

Ahead of the production's gala premiere, the former Beatle admitted to not having been an afficianado of ballet before getting involved in the project.

Will added analysis to:

Sir Paul admits to ballet nerves

Paul McCartney's approach was to make a piece that he, a ballet layman, would want to watch. He has followed his instincts and produced a traditional, romantic ballet.

There are elements of Tchaikovsky and Gershwin in the four-movement orchestral piece, which is more elegant than exciting. But it is a coherent piece to which the dancers responded well to as they told his story: a romance that appears to be based on Romeo and Juliet (but with a happier ending).

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Why Star Wars should be left to the fans

Fans of Star Wars are not happy. Someone has been tampering with their movie history, altering elements of those intergalactic classics, which some feel is akin to an act of vandalism.

The fact that the perpetrator is George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, only seems to make matters worse.

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St Paul's Cathedral through a lens

Here's my report on a new art installation at St Paul's Cathedral to mark the magnificent building's 300th anniversary

The 400mm-wide crystal lens, designed by John Pawson, transforms the view of Sir Christopher Wren's helical staircase.

Pop art pioneer Richard Hamilton dies

Here's my report on Richard Hamilton, one of the most influential British artists of the post-war period, who has died at the age of 89.

He is widely regarded as the inventor of pop art but will be best remembered as the master of collage.

About Will

Will has been BBC arts editor since 2009

Before that, he was a director at the Tate Gallery for seven years, where he was responsible for the award-winning Tate Online, the UK’s most popular art website, and Tate Etc, the UK’s highest circulation art magazine.

He was voted one of the world's top 50 creative thinkers by the New York-based Creativity Magazine.

In 2009 Will wrote and performed a sell-out one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe called, Double Art History

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