THIS WEEK: I'll mostly be taking my clothes off

It's official. Stripping is the new fad in London's oh-so-fickle art world. Leading the way is sultry up-and-coming artist Jemima Stehli, who earlier this year stole the show at the Lisson Gallery's summer show. In that exhibition she exhibited a series of five photo-shoots, each of her performing a strip-tease to various art-world big-wig blokes including Guardian art critic Adrian Searle and hot curator Matthew Higgs. Shot so the viewer could see Stehli's gradually uncovering back (and, erm, arse), the images focused on the faces of the art blokes, with Adrian Searle winning the prize for most blatant enjoyment. Stehli is now due to show at the Chisenhale Gallery this November, and it's a fair bet that the show will attract plenty of critical scrutiny. Funny that.

Searle, meanwhile, obviously cannot get enough. His interview with Rachel Whiteread in last week's Guardian was somewhat bizarrely carried out in an East End strip pub. Searle triumphantly revealed that the clientele of said seedy boozer were au fait with contemporary art, complimenting Whiteread on her artistic achievements. Moreover, according to Searle, one of the 'exotic dancers' approached Whiteread for tips on how to get into art school. How touching.

And finally, reports reach us that last Wednesday night, a certain ex-art hack and present director of trendy Hoxton Gallery was seen hovering uneasily in a boozer at the bottom of the Hackney Road where - wait for it - girls take their clothes off for the princely sum of one pound per punter. Good to see that those trendy art types hang out in all the must-be-seen Shoreditch venues. ----

Our regular look of what's going on in the shady world of the art market. This week: art prints

In our next newsletter (okay perhaps not the next, but one soon) we'll be looking at the frankly dodgy world of art prints. But since it's pay-day we thought we'd give you a few tips to keep you happy this week. Now let's get this straight: most prints are little better that high-class photocopies that cost around a tenner to manufacture. But, if you've got a few pounds free this week (okay around 500 of them to be precise) you might do worse that blow them on a print from new internet print people Counter Editions (www.countereditions.com). The first batch being released are Gillian Wearing, Chris Ofili, Gary Hume, Mat Collishaw, Tracey Emin - and just to prove that Counter Editions' portfolio extends beyond young Brits - New Yorker Elizabeth Peyton and LA photographer Jeff Burton.

Buy the Hume if you must, but beware of seeing it on other loft-dwellers walls. Buy the glow-in-the-dark Ofili if you're the type of person who sticks glow-in-the-dark stars on your bedroom ceiling. Buy the Mat Collishaw if you want to impress your mates with your devotion to this 'artist's artist' (i.e. he's good but no-one knows quite why). Buy Jeff Burton if you liked The Big Lebowski. Buy Elizabeth Peyton if you still think New York has a vestige of coolness about it and believe Starbucks make a nice cup of coffee. Don't buy Tracey Emin. Just don't.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY - Jim Shaw at the ICA

Jim Shaw is an American who has spent the best part of his life buying crap paintings from thrift stores and exhibiting them in one big jumble. The perceptive Waldemar Januszczak of The Times pointed out 'We don't have "thrift stores" in Britain.' Well thanks, Waldemar.

Our friend, the Guardian's Adrian Searle was initially horrified. "The paintings are awful, indefensible, crapulous….these people can't draw, can't paint; these people should never be left alone with a paintbrush." But then Searle remembered that before he became art critic he was well known for being an indefensible, crapulous painter of doomy semi-abstracts, and decided he really quite liked the show. "The Thrift Store Paintings are fascinating, alarming, troubled and funny. Scary too, just like America." Blimey - perhaps Waldemar and Adrian should write a guidebook about America together.

Simon Grant of The Evening Standard thought the whole American thing was a warning for us all, noting "the sad anxiety in these dysfunctional images tell a story that is fast becoming Britain's too." Get yourself a shrink son and get out a bit more is our message for Simon. A sentiment shared by Time Out's Sarah Kent: "Critics professing to be gobsmacked by these efforts can never have seen an amateur art show or walked along the railings of the Bayswater road. They should get out more."

Meanwhile the last word must go to barking mad Waldemar, who aimed a parting shot at critics who rate Shaw. "To the critics who think this or write it, I say: resign. Your eyes are going. Your mind is going. Your soul has gone."

Verdict: crapulous but meaningful and strangely beautiful if you're feeling a bit down or you have bad eyesight and are losing your mind.

THIS WEEK: we'll mostly be middle-aged

Youth is so over-rated. All that nonsense about young British artists was just so last century. We want middle-age and we want it now. Last week's opening at Hoxton's White Cube, a gallery indelibly linked with that movement named after youth - the young British artists - answered our prayers. No longer bounding around like a young kitten, but instead lounging near the doorway like your best mate's mum, was the 37 year old Tracey Emin. Chatting away to the ageless Jay Jopling was that artist's artist (™), Cerith Wyn Evans looking not a day younger than his 42 years of age. Even this year's hot young thing who is going to win the Turner, Wolfgang Tillmans, rolled in unobtrusively, despite his relative youth at 32.

In the Evening Standard on Friday we got to read words of wisdom by those enfants terrible, Jake and Dinos Chapman (34 and 38 respectively). My god, even the magazine frieze, which was known for its first five years for being run by a ludicrously young editorial team is now run by a thirty-something whose fashion sense seems to owe a considerable debt to the Hell's Angels. What's going on? Bring me a young virgin now.

THIS WEEK'S HOT TIPS

- buy the Mat Collishaw print

- discuss Jemima Stehli and post-gender issues at dinner parties

- let yourself slide into middle-age

- take your clothes off