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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Intrepid gravity surfer
MIK SABIERS is captivated by agile, imaginative and poignant images that literally ‘laugh’ at physics
WAY TO GO: Going Home, 2019; Light Bearer, 2020 Copyright Benji Reid. Courtesy the artist and October Gallery, London
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
Benji Reid
Laugh at Gravity
October Gallery
MOLOTOV cocktails, lights, lamps, rope, fans, fins and fluffy clouds all feature in Manchester-born and based photo-artist Benji Reid’s first solo show at London’s October Gallery.
The exhibition, part of Photo London 2021, comprises a series of mainly self-portraits in a hyper-stylised form that combine everyday objects — some kitsch, some common — and the artist centre stage, to showcase set-ups that seem real, yet are somehow otherworldly.
The common theme, and focus, is gravity — or the lack of — with most of the pictures either featuring Reid in the air or in flight.
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