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
Keleigh Wolf - Lipstick on the 211
Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter
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
Lipstick on the 211
Keleigh Wolf
You enjoy symbolism – balance this off your Barthes:
You are lipstick-tube traveller, sat atop the 211 bus
to penetrate a Waterloo sunset.
Once you’ve slipped through those sucrose oranges
slinking off into the blackness of a rioting night,
your feet will follow the historic path of the pissed-off
to heave your well-weighed, twice measured, once cut
ideology to the sky with the exuberance of a Pentecostal choir.
Similar stories
The Bard does Bearded Theory, and lodges a complaint about bandnames
by Clare Evans
April 9 1928 – July 26 2025
by Widad Nabi