At 88, she has won a Munch award for artistic freedom – despite her pioneering work being cancelled by the US university she studied at. She talks protest, polarisation and propaganda

It’s a miracle I get out of my interview with Palestinian artist Samia Halaby alive. Not just because the creaky wooden stairs to her second-floor Tribeca, New York live-work space are alarmingly steep, but because certain people view the 88-year-old acclaimed abstract artist, a pioneer of digital art, as a dangerous security threat.

In December 2023, Indiana University, Halaby’s alma mater, cancelled what was due to be the first American retrospective exhibition of Halaby’s work at the university’s Eskenazi Museum of Art. The exhibition had been three years in the making but Halaby was informed she was no longer welcome in a terse two-sentence letter from the museum’s director, citing vague security concerns. The real reason, she suspects, was the museum’s wish to distance itself from anything supportive of Palestine in the wake of 7 October. Almost a year later, says Halaby, Michigan State University abruptly cancelled the opening party for her solo retrospective and removed a painting whose title, Six Golden Heroes, referred to the escape of Palestinian political prisoners.

It was the place to be through the 1980s, a nightclub where Johnny Rotten and Kim Wilde rubbed shoulders with the Beastie Boys and, er, Mel Smith. David Koppel’s new book captures it all

Recess, Brooklyn

A traveling exhibition of work from Palestinian artists aims to provide visibility to those whose lives have been devastated by the ongoing war

Artists will go on creating, even under the most extreme and inhumane of conditions. This truism is part of the message and the power of the Gaza Biennale, which is currently working to exhibit the art of dozens of Palestinians around the world – including in New York City, where the abolitionist arts non-profit Recess hosts an exhibition of work from more than 25 of these artists.

“They are artists, they need to create art,” said the Biennale organizers, who requested to be identified as the Forbidden Museum. “We need to help artists stand up for themselves with their skills. Just because you are an artist in the middle of a genocide doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to do.”

Created by photographer Jamie Morgan and stylist Ray Petri, the Buffalo look – tough, but also cinematic – was worn by Naomi Campbell, Neneh Cherry and Kate Moss. Morgan explains what it means, then and now

Fashion’s historic references come and go. Currently, they might include Harrison Ford in shorts in the 1970s and 90s Oasis. But there are also some that are canon – such as Buffalo, the look masterminded by stylist Ray Petri and photographer Jamie Morgan in the mid-80s.

Shaped largely through fashion shoots for the Face magazine, the duo created a look that reflected the culture and creativity of London at the time, but gave it the classy and cinematic feel of a Marlon Brando portrait or a shot by Henri Cartier-Bresson. This beautifully lit black-and-white photography of street-cast models and people – including a then-unknown Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Neneh Cherry and Nick Kamen, who later went on to star in Levi’s famous 1985 launderette advert – went on to shape both fashion photography and fashion.

Curators can now chart the seismic shifts in 20th-century art – and include more works by women and artists of colour

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One of my favourite paintings in the National Gallery’s collection technically breaks the rules: Paul Cézanne’s Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) was painted in the last decade of his life, its date given as about 1894-1905. It was probably finished after the gallery’s cut-off date of 1900, a cut-off the gallery has just announced it will be jettisoning.

To say that I am pleased is an understatement. It always struck me as bizarre that the end date occurs just at the exact point in history when painting is about to become very interesting. Just look at the Baigneuses and what they represent: the leap towards abstraction in the representation of the human form; the composition and its unidentifiable, but unified landscape; the use of colour, and the lack of discernible religious or mythological subject matter. The painting and its two sisters cast a significant influence on the onward march of 20th-century painting, particularly cubism, as they made a strong impression on both Matisse and Picasso. Yet one leaves the building without much of a sense of how these revolutionary developments ever played out. To stop at 1900 never made much sense. Weird altarpieces have their place, but there are only so many in the world to acquire, and the public’s appetite for them is likely to be limited.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist. Her book Female, Nude – a novel about art, the body and female sexuality – will be published in 2026.

The sport, a popular pastime of the white elite during the colonial period, has struggled in recent years, but its fortunes may be changing

The spectators on the grandstand at Ngong Racecourse in Nairobi jumped to their feet as the horses competing in the fifth race of the Day of Champions – the last meeting of the season – came around the final corner on a recent Sunday afternoon. “Bedford! Bedford! Bedford,” some roared, punching the air as the horse, jockeyed by Michael Fundi, broke into a gallop on the home stretch, passed the leader, and stormed to victory.

Fundi, who had started the day on top of the jockey standings, was crowned the season’s champion after the last race. At 20, he was the youngest in a decade.

Above: Michael Fundi with Bedford after winning the 2400m Jockey Club Stakes George Drew Challenge Series.

The Canada-based photographer used his camera’s slo-mo mode to create a fluid pattern

Raghuvamsh Chavali was born in Hyderabad, India, and now calls Canada – or more specifically Guelph in Ontario – his home. He describes his adopted city as “a peaceful and friendly place, with a mix of heritage buildings and modern life”. It also proved an ideal backdrop for his extended photographic series Wings Over Concrete, which explores the presence and movement of birds in urban environments.

Before he took this image, one cloudy afternoon in downtown Guelph, Chavali had been tracking this particular flock of pigeons for several weeks. “I was in search of the natural patterns of birds, and I’d seen this flock flying in circles around the buildings near a train station at the same time each day. They moved in a tight, repeated loop, and on this day the light was soft and just right to capture their movement clearly,” he says. He utilised his phone camera’s slo-mo mode “to create a visual that almost feels like it was drawn with light. Their flight formed a fluid, layered pattern, like an S-shaped ribbon floating in space.”

As Swiss glaciers melt at an ever-faster rate, new species move in and flourish, but entire ecosystems and an alpine culture can be lost

• Photographs by Nicholas JR White

From the slopes behind the village of Ernen, it is possible to see the gouge where the Fiesch glacier once tumbled towards the valley in the Bernese Alps. The curved finger of ice, rumpled like tissue, cuts between high buttresses of granite and gneiss. Now it has melted out of sight.

People here once feared the monstrous ice streams, describing them as devils, but now they dread their disappearance. Like other glaciers in the Alps and globally, the Fiesch is melting at ever-increasing rates. More than ice is lost when the giants disappear: cultures, societies and entire ecosystems are braided around the glaciers.

The Aletsch glacier viewed from Moosfluh, looking towards the Olmenhorn and Eggishorn peaks

Israeli strikes on Gaza, air alerts in Kyiv, the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, and Carlos Alcaraz’s victory at the US Open: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

• Warning: this gallery contains images some readers may find distressing

Anita Lester’s distinctive mushroom murder trial portraits show someone she perceived to be ‘consistently sad’

The first time Anita Lester drew Erin Patterson, she made the mistake of trying to be too accurate. Lester, a courtroom artist, had just two minutes to sketch the triple murderer during her brief pre-trial hearing and spent it trying to perfectly illustrate “a little head behind a glass screen in Morwell”. What she later realised is that it’s more important to capture the mood of the accused than the exact lines of their face.

“What makes a good courtroom artist is being able to bring the public into the courtroom to witness the emotion of the person on trial,” she says. “You’re actually trying to just capture a feeling or a gesture that might resonate. It’s not about being the best artist in the world.”

Judges have announced the winning images from the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s annual competition. The photographs will be exhibited at the National Maritime Museum in London from Friday

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Martha Naranjo Sandoval’s intimate images of family and friends document her first years in NYC – from fire hydrant rainbows to epic views of the skyline

The Melbourne-based interior designer reflects on the past 10 years of Flack Studio and reveals the inspiration and stories behind the rooms that launched it to international fame

• Flack Studio: Interiors is out from 16 September (Rizzoli: A$180, US$75)