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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Lest we forget
German Nazis indulged in an orgy of book-burning that had no parallels in the 20th century. This monument is a pertinent and timely reminder of how destructive intolerance is
NIGHT OF INFAMY: (L to R) The Library memorial to nazi book burnings at this spot of Bebelplatz in Berlin on May 10 1933, in the background Saint Hedwig's Cathedral; a further book burning took place the next day in the nearby Opernplatz
[(L to R) Kemmi.1/CC and Pahl and Georg/Bundesarchiv/CC]
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
ART IN THE OPEN
The Library
Bebelplatz, Berlin
THE evening of Wednesday May 10 1933 was bleak and rainy in Berlin.
Over 40,000 people had gathered in Kaiser Franz Josef Platz, now Bebelplatz, as Nazi German students from the adjoining Friedrich Wilhelms University (today Humboldt University), accompanied by many of the teaching staff, gleefully set fire to a large pile of over 20,000 books.
An SS military band played and close to midnight Joseph Goebbels, the German minister for propaganda addressed the gathering thus: “Entrust to the flames the intellectual garbage of the past.”
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The creative imagination is a weapon against barbarism, writes KENNY COYLE, who is a keynote speaker at the Manifesto Press conference, Art in the Age of Degenerative Capitalism, tomorrow at the Marx Memorial Library & Workers School in London