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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Seductive sound organisation
CONRAD LANDIN recommends a unique aural event on a Scottish beach
WORTH SOUNDING OUT: Irvine Beach
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
Signal-on-Sea
Irvine Beach
A YOUNG couple scream as they plunge into the water. A flock of seagulls descend on an overturned rubbish bin, surrounded by indifferent teenagers. A family’s picnic, complete with gas stoves and giant folding tables, becomes an object of envy as others struggle against the elements to get their barbecues going.
Close your ears and it could be just another sunny day in Irvine, one of several prime beaches on Scotland’s west coast in easy reach for the working class of the central belt.
But all around are tannoy speakers anchored in the sand, as if the nostalgic comparisons of our present predicament to the beaches of Dunkirk have culminated in a Blitz re-enactment in North Ayrshire.
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MIRANDA RICHMOND relishes the gloriously liberated art of Roy Oxlade, and traces his method back to the thinking of David Bomberg, his acknowledged teacher
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
KEVIN DONNELLY accepts the invitation to think speculatively in contemplation of representations of people of African descent in our cultural heritage
Paul MacGee of Manifesto Press invites you to a special launch on Saturday August 2.