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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Unique insight into 1960s Britain and Czechoslovakia from men of letters
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
Letters of Solidarity and Friendship: Czechoslovakia 1968-71
Edited by David Parker
(Bacquier Books, £14.99)
THIS remarkable collection of letters between a Czech citizen, a medical doctor and former communist living in Czechoslovakia and a 70-year-old British man provide a unique insight into the momentous period following the Prague Spring of 1968 as seen by two individuals on either side of the Iron Curtain.
Both have in common deep humanitarian values but are ideologically far apart. Leslie Parker, a Communist Party member, clearly sees and bemoans the iniquities of capitalism, while his co-correspondent Dr Paul Zalud lives under a deformed socialist system and has lost his faith in the benefits of state socialism. Both give detailed descriptions of what life is like in their respective countries.
Tragically, they never met, but a warm relationship developed on the basis of their common sense of humour, love of language and debate. Their amicable correspondence took place over almost four years after Parker read a letter by Zalud in The Times in July 1968, only a month before Soviet tanks rolled into Prague.
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