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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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
You paid your debt your to the Great Universal,
Ticking the box to say you no longer wished to be a representative,
And you walked out, in a patent leather, eagerly anticipated,
Excellent value for you shoe, through the front door this time,
Carrying your mother’s packed away sadness,
In a matching pair of brand new suitcases for every occasion,
Full of qualifications to be somewhere else.
Then you slipped in to an empty seat on an empty bus,
Like a popped in pear-drop, from a shared quarter,
Passed between mother and daughter,
Sat on the sofa, staring at the telly,
Yelling bad jokes at the soaps,
Her stroking your hair
And hoping.
Nadia Drews is a Poetry on the Picketline regular, whose old mum lives on the Roman Road in London.
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