This was one of the most purely exciting exhibitions I’ve seen in a long time. So vibrant and visually assured, it stimulates one’s sight in the same way a complex gourmet meal explodes in multiple flavours across the taste buds. Seasoned visitors to the V&A might not be surprised by this. Quick note for those…
Category: 20th century
France Mitrofanoff présente ‘En Chemin’ pour ArtMuseLondon
Là-bas au bout du chemin de terre, c’est la forêt. Une clairière baignée de lumière; la pénombre des arbres révèle des verts tendres alternant avec des bruns profonds. Au centre, la diagonale sombre du chemin. Le vent incline les tiges qui se prêtent aux mouvements libres de mon pinceau chargé de couleurs; quittant la clairière,…
Elizabeth lines: ‘Gloriana’ at English National Opera
ENO’s one-off presentation of Britten’s coronation opera – originally programmed as a platinum jubilee-year special – was destined to become a powerfully significant evening. A double tribute: not only to the late monarch herself, but to the ENO company itself – still very much alive, defying its would-be executioners by putting its heart and soul…
Sound and visions: Sean Shibe, ‘Lost & Found’
The latest album from Sean Shibe is original and rewarding; inspired and inspirational. And the more I play it, the more it also feels like a game-changer, the kind of release that could challenge any preconceptions about the instrument featured and open new avenues of writing and recording for it. * For those unfamiliar, Shibe…
Picture This : French Illustrator Serge Bloch ‘I Wear the Hat’
What I find interesting in collage, is the relationship between the glued object and the graphic line, and what transpires between the collection of the collage and the drawing. For me, collage is humour, the coming together of two artistic impulses. The titles to my drawings are often playful, made up of strands of poetry…
Picasso-Ingres Face to Face at National Gallery
In room 46 of the London National Gallery, two portraits hang, one by classical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, the other by Pablo Picasso. Ingres’s portrait is of society beauty, Madame Moitessier (1856). Picasso’s portrait, several metres away, is of his mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, entitled Woman with a Book (1932). You may wonder why these works have been given…
Walter Sickert Unsettles and Enchants at Tate Britain Retrospective
Walter Sickert is a bit of an enigma. Brilliant certainly, rather weird, probably. Author, Patricia Cornwell, wrote a book about him, claiming that he was the Jack the Ripper. She is not the first writer to associate Sickert with the infamous murderer. Other writers postulate that Sickert was the Ripper’s assistant. What is undeniable, is that Sickert…
Body horror: ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, at English National Opera
This icy, subtle production presents Margaret Atwood’s terrifying vision with a clear-sighted, almost detached precision. Poul Ruders’s score gets under your skin, amping up the tension as events come to a head, while the heart-breaking performances relentlessly deal the emotional blows. Opera as commentary, catharsis and conscience: brilliantly done. * ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ the opera,…
Ice flows: Penguin Cafe, Barbican, London
Penguin Cafe’s recent performance at London’s Barbican Centre is likely to go down, in my own personal annals, as one of my favourite concerts of all time. It still feels like hyperbole to type that: it was only a few weeks ago. But how can I explain? – that wave of euphoria that carries you…
Fashioning Masculinities at the Victoria and Albert Museum
With its latest exhibition Fashioning Masculinities, the Victoria and Albert Museum traces the paths of masculinity through clothes, objects, film, and painting, from the 16th century to the present. I admit to having been a little sceptical about the enterprise, fearing that it would be too much of a challenge to cover such a broad topic over…
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