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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Anna X, Harold Pinter Theatre London
Mordant critique of an art world infected by neoliberal values
LOST IN A FLOATING WORLD: Nabhaan Rizwan (Ariel) and Emma Corrin (Anna)
[Helen Murray]
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
AN ARTWORK in itself, Anna X opens as an installation, with strobe lighting, electronic music, two dancing actors and surtitles of their clipped, and sometimes misheard, conversation.
The couple, immersed in the high-octane gadfly life of the New York arts and apps scene, are a world away from their origins. Anna (a superb performance from Emma Corrin) and Ariel (a vulnerable Nabhaan Rizwan) are the protagonists of this fine new play from Joseph Charlton, directed by Daniel Raggett.
Its subject matter is the push and pull of shallow and deep identity. Anna, from Ukraine, but posing as a rich Russian, arrives in the city to start an internship with a trendy fashion and art magazine and, of course, wants to open her own art gallery.
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