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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Christine Lindey's art exhibitions of the year
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
THE centenary of the Russian Revolution provided cultural institutions with a theme which was interpreted in questionable ways.
By far the worst was the Royal Academy’s exhibition Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932. Favoured by an enviably generous budget and excellent connections with post-Soviet Russian institutions, it gathered an impressive body of art and design, some being virtually unknown in Britain.
But rather than explaining the Soviet artists’ socially committed motivations, a vindictive curatorial approach shamefully contextualised the works in didactic attacks on the revolution’s ideals and achievements, reminiscent of liverish 1920s Russian emigres fretting over their lost fortunes.
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HENRY BELL follows the lineage of revolutions, from the English to the Chinese, and asks where revolutionary politics exists today
JAN WOOLF ponders the works and contested reputation of the West German sculptor and provocateur, who believed that everybody is potentially an artist
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.