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
Latest editorial
Acute interest in troubled times
This year's Venice Biennale tackles some of the most pressing global concerns we face today, says DENNIS BROE
Threshold of violence: Shilpa Gupta’s Ominous Gate
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
CURATED by Hayward Gallery’s Ralph Rogoff, May You Live in Interesting Times is the title and organising principle of this year’s Venice Biennale.
The phrase itself, deployed across the political spectrum from as far left as Bertholt Brecht and as far right as Hillary Clinton, references a presumed ancient Chinese curse, although there is no trace of it in Chinese.
The more astute artists on show translate “interesting” as horrifying, blood-curdling and perilous, while others seem to reaffirm Rogoff’s catalogue description of the phrase as “complex” and, in so doing, come dangerously close to reaffirming a virtual utopia or simply wallowing in the chaos that the combination of climate disaster, impending recession and continual appropriation of more resources by the wealthiest have wrought.
Similar stories
SIMON PARSONS applauds an artist who rescues and rehumanises stories of women, the victims of violence, from a feminist perspective
JAN WOOLF ponders the works and contested reputation of the West German sculptor and provocateur, who believed that everybody is potentially an artist
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
KEVIN DONNELLY accepts the invitation to think speculatively in contemplation of representations of people of African descent in our cultural heritage