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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The New Abject
Real and abstract revulsion compelling themes of dread-zone anthology
ORACLE OF ABJECTION: Julia Kristeva
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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
ACCORDING to critic and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva, abjection involves either a confrontation with our sense of physical being or a separation between the self and a rejected “other.” Objects of revulsion can be tangible, such as faeces and bodily fluids, but some forms of dread are abstract and ambiguous.
The New Abject collection of horror stories draws on the broad nature of Kristeva’s definition, which has inspired a loosely related set of tales that deal with the things that make us shudder and retch.
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