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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The end of dialogue
SIMON PARSONS applauds an assured and enjoyable adaptation of Ali Smith’s meditative and pessimistic novel about Brexit Britain
Rebecca Banatvala in Harry MacDonald's adaptation of Autumn
[Harry Elletson]
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
Autumn
The North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford
ALI SMITH’s 2017 Booker Prize short-listed novel was regarded as one of the first post-Brexit works dealing with the ramifications of the previous year’s European Union membership referendum.
Its depiction of an increasingly insular and fearful country, set on erecting fences while petty, pedantic officialdom flourishes has proved remarkably prescient.
Harry McDonald’s timely adaptation of the novel remains essentially true to Smith’s work revelling in the nature of words, but has even broader implications now with nationalistic European movements growing ever stronger and the re-election of Donald Trump, with his alarmingly hostile and isolationist agenda.
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