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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Fools the theme, Satire the song
WILL STONE relishes a refreshingly irreverent raconteur's record on politics at the turn of the millennium
George Osborne's "weird nose, weak chin and cruel eyes... the fact he clearly has no bones in his head, his skull replaced by lard and gristle"
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
As I Please: And Other Writings, 1986-2024
Martin Rowson, Seagull Books, £19.99
ONE of the most celebrated political cartoonists of our age, Martin Rowson has a decades-long written record of equally skilful takedowns of the world’s many hypocrisies and hypocrites, proving to the detractors that cartoonists can write. Shock, horror!
The all-singing, all-dancing Rowson spent 20 years from 1997 showcasing his ready wit in the pages of the left-wing Tribune magazine for its As I Please column — a slot originally occupied by none other than George Orwell in the 1940s. Rowson himself admits to “squatting” in Orwell's column in a June 2003 article marking 100 years since the author’s birth.
But in reality the column — which gave Orwell carte blanche to improvise on any subject he pleased — is the perfect modus operandi for Rowson’s eccentric, offbeat mindset.
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