To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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Cinema Graphic picture of a gay pioneer
MARIA DUARTE recommends a no-holds-barred biopic of artist Tom of Finland
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
Tom of Finland (18)
Directed by Dome Karukoski
4/5
FINNISH artist Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, was one of the most influential figures of 20th-century Western gay culture and film-maker Dome Karukoski brings his colourful and impressive life story to the big screen in this thought-provoking and gripping biopic.
It outlines his journey from advertising executive to a leading figure in, and emblem of, the gay movement.
Pekka Strang’s powerful and understated performance as Laaksonen does justice to a man ahead of his time who, in the late 1950s and 1960s, stood up to a world which would not allow him to be a homosexual man with gay fantasies.
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From sexual innuendo about Blackpool Rock to Bob Dylan’s ‘God-almighty world,’ the corporation’s classist moral custodianship of pop music has created a roll call of censored artists anyone would feel honoured to join, writes NICK MATTHEWS
BLANE SAVAGE recommends the display of nine previously unseen works by the Glaswegian artist, novelist and playwright