Arts Reviews

The good, bad and ugly in arts and exhbitions

Saturday

Niru Ratnam

Aesthetic responses

Over the past month I’ve strolled through Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie to examine Edouard Manet’s ‘In the Conservatory’ in close detail. Over the past month I’ve strolled through Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie to examine Edouard Manet’s ‘In the Conservatory’ in close detail. I’ve taken a look at what’s on offer on the stands of international art dealers including Gagosian and White Cube at the VIP art fair. I have also considered buying shares in a 1988 gouache by Sol LeWitt. And I’ve done all these things from my front room thanks to an internet revolution in the art world. In December, the first stock exchange for art opened up with shares in

Laura Gascoigne

21st-century floating world

It’s an irony of Western art that our vision of modern metropolitan life was shaped, via Impressionism, by ukiyo-e prints — ‘pictures of the floating world’ of Edo, Japan. It’s an irony of Western art that our vision of modern metropolitan life was shaped, via Impressionism, by ukiyo-e prints — ‘pictures of the floating world’ of Edo, Japan. In his new exhibition, Tokyo, at Flowers East, Jiro Osuga updates that vision for the 21st century. The son of a Japanese businessman, Osuga left his native Tokyo for London in 1970 at the age of 12 and studied at Chelsea and the Royal College of Art. Since his first exhibition at

Roderick Conway-Morris

Fruit of the vine

According to Athenaeus of Naucratis, the 2nd-century AD author of The Sophists’ Banquet, the ancient Sybarites kept the capital of their city-state in southern Italy supplied with wine through a network of ‘vinoducts’ that reached far out into the surrounding countryside. According to Athenaeus of Naucratis, the 2nd-century AD author of The Sophists’ Banquet, the ancient Sybarites kept the capital of their city-state in southern Italy supplied with wine through a network of ‘vinoducts’ that reached far out into the surrounding countryside. Amusing though this high-table story was, it reflects the extent to which ancient Mediterranean civilisations were fuelled by the fermented grape, a sacred fluid central to the imagery

Angela Summerfield

Visual dialogue

An encounter with the paintings by the established Berlin-based Swede Peter Frie comes as a breath of fresh and insightful air to the British contemporary art scene. The dozen or so works (large-scale oil landscapes and a few still-lives) are displayed in stunning contemporary settings: a glass gallery and an adjacent artists’ house at Roche Court (a period house with grounds, better known for its sculpture programme). Landscape painting has not fared well within the dictates of modernist and post-modernist art definitions. It is as if an urban-centric, text-driven and often anti-aesthetic dogma has stifled both alternative discourse and individual human expression. Yet our experience of landscape, and by association

James Hart-Dyke

On the edge

There’s nothing safe or cosy — and, indeed, there shouldn’t be anything safe or cosy —about being an artist. There’s nothing safe or cosy — and, indeed, there shouldn’t be anything safe or cosy —about being an artist. Being an artist means living on the edge, going outside your comfort zone, being challenged. Artists put that challenge into practice in all sorts of different ways; and for me it’s meant seeking out challenge — and adventure — in a very focused way. I call what I do ‘extreme art’: I’ve deliberately set myself a series of tasks that have taken me into challenging and even dangerous situations, so I can

Andrew Lambirth

Painter’s progress

Andrew Lambirth talks to Alan Reynolds, who abandoned a lucrative career as a landscape painter to follow his instincts towards abstraction At the age of 85, Alan Reynolds is enjoying a sudden and well-deserved flurry of interest in his work. A superb monograph has just been published on his art, written by Michael Harrison, director of Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, and to launch the book there’s an exhibition at Annely Juda Fine Art (23 Dering Street, W1, until 26 March). This is Reynolds’s seventh solo show at the gallery, which has successfully represented him since 1978, and which has been responsible for promoting his work in Europe. The new work

George Hull

Eccentrics on parade

A young aristocrat and the daughter of a banished duke fall in love at a wrestling contest. Both are forced from court by family intrigue, and take refuge in the same enchanted forest. She recognises him, but not vice versa, since to avert assault she has disguised herself as a boy. Confusions ensue. Stephen Unwin’s production of As You Like It (at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, until 26 March) is hoppled from the start by an antipathetic Orlando. A few minutes into the play he charges across the stage and attacks his eldest brother violently from behind. We can only sympathise as Oliver (William Tapley) plots to have him killed

Michael Tanner

Musical marvel

It is some time since any of the masterpieces of Wagner’s high maturity has been staged in London, so ENO’s revival of Parsifal was most welcome, despite memories of the irritations and worse of the production in 1999. It is some time since any of the masterpieces of Wagner’s high maturity has been staged in London, so ENO’s revival of Parsifal was most welcome, despite memories of the irritations and worse of the production in 1999. Since then it has toured the world, and achieved contemporary immortality on DVD, a performance recorded in Baden-Baden. The ENO revival is directed by Daniel Dooner, and is quite extensively revised, though not nearly

Giannandrea Poesio

Order in chaos

The history of Western ballet over the past 40 years can easily be divided into two chapters: the pre- and post-William Forsythe eras. In the early Eighties, the multitalented American-born dance-maker brought Postmodernism into ballet, challenging formulae and tenets that were 400 years old. His radical approach to the old art made some scream with horror. But it also injected new life into a languishing art. Nothing escaped Forsythe’s radical but well thought-out approach. Body axis, symmetries, gravity and gravitas were questioned and reworked along with the many conventions and expectations that were central to both making and watching ballet. Crucial duets disappeared behind a wall, while curtains and lights

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Literary junkyard

We critics know everything about the theatre. We see the best shows, we get the finest seats in the house and we’re occasionally treated to a fuming glass of vin ordinaire to lubricate our ruminations. And yet what do we really know? We critics know everything about the theatre. We see the best shows, we get the finest seats in the house and we’re occasionally treated to a fuming glass of vin ordinaire to lubricate our ruminations. And yet what do we really know? Last week a family funeral forced me to miss the press night of Frankenstein and when I logged on to the NT website I found it

Deborah Ross

Poor planning

Although I appreciate it is always hard to come down from the Oscars and that special, magical tingle in the air — if I hadn’t turned in after MasterChef, as I always do, I would have certainly stayed up all night to watch — it’s time to get back to business and this week’s big film The Adjustment Bureau, which could do with a significant amount of adjusting itself. Although I appreciate it is always hard to come down from the Oscars and that special, magical tingle in the air — if I hadn’t turned in after MasterChef, as I always do, I would have certainly stayed up all night

Simon Hoggart

The real thing | 5 March 2011

I had prepared myself for another rant at Comic Relief, a grisly occasion on BBC1 in which every year parades of slebs preen themselves on their good works. What made my teeth curl was the way some comedian would announce that the Twistelton Lions had held a pram race through the town (with the mayor dressed as a baby!) and took £1,459, a fraction of what the sleb expects for a single performance. Last year we saw Jonathan Ross congratulating all those people who had climbed Kilimanjaro, so raising one-20th of Ross’s annual salary. Couldn’t he have saved them the trouble by writing a cheque? As Jeremy Hardy used to

Saturday

Andrew Lambirth

Selective attention

Another vast exhibition at Tate Britain, but one which will no doubt prove popular with the public. Watercolour is a national pastime, and the English tend to wax proprietorial about it. As a painting medium it appeals greatly to amateurs because it’s nearly always possible to do something passable in watercolour which couldn’t be achieved in oil paint without more knowledge, application and experience. Passable, yes, but not distinguished: it takes a very great deal of skill to achieve the more than ordinary in watercolour, and herein lies its seduction and challenge. The stakes are raised by the existence of a tradition of great watercolour painting in this country, which

St John-Simpson

Cultural connections

Afghanistan has been subjected to centuries of turmoil, yet an astonishing collection of treasures survives and will be on show at the British Museum next week, as the exhibition’s curator St John Simpson explains Afghanistan is often described as the crossroads of Asia and of the ancient world, and a major new exhibition of objects loaned by the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul to the British Museum sets out to tell the story of its turbulent history and rich culture. By virtue of its position and physical geography, Afghanistan has always played an important role in the mediation of cultures between Iran, Central Asia and South Asia. The ebb

Giannandrea Poesio

Dazzling feat

Legend has it that when the Romantic ballerina Marie Taglioni gave her farewell performance in St Petersburg a group of wealthy fans bought a pair of her slippers, and cooked and ate them as a token of their admiration. Shoe-fetishism has since reached new heights, thanks to Sex — on heels — in the City. Indeed, Sarah Jessica Parker/Carrie Bradshaw’s canonisation of one of the most idealised items of clothing plays a significant part in Shoes, which makes a welcome comeback to the West End. Although it is labelled a musical, Shoes draws upon the long-forgotten tradition of the old review, namely a series of almost independent song-and-dance numbers held

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Flavour of freedom

Richard Bean is a creative nomad, a pix-and-mix sort of playwright who lights on subjects seemingly at random. He’s written about Brussels, racism, agriculture, social mobility and trawlermen. Now he’s taken on climate change and he’s hit the mark with delicious accuracy. This is his best play so far. The Heretic is set in a university earth-sciences faculty where Diane, a paleogeophysicist, has found incontestable proof that sea levels aren’t rising. A decade ago she planted a betel nut tree on a beach in the allegedly drowning Maldives. But instead of sinking, the tree is thriving. Her departmental head, Kevin, tells her that her findings may damage the faculty’s ‘business

Michael Tanner

Touching the void

The Royal Opera has been both noisy and evasive about Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new opera, Anna Nicole, with words by Richard Thomas of Jerry Springer: the Opera notoriety. The Royal Opera has been both noisy and evasive about Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new opera, Anna Nicole, with words by Richard Thomas of Jerry Springer: the Opera notoriety. I have never seen and heard so much advance publicity, for any arts event whatever, and yet, apart from telling us that it was to be about the eponymous celebrity, there was very little about the piece that could actually be called information. There seemed something reflexive about the whole operation, endless articles and interviews, but

Kate Chisholm

Eavesdropping for free

Amid the fear and drear of cuts, and yet more cuts, Radio 3 has offered its fans an adrenaline boost by suddenly announcing a huge increase in the number of ‘live’ performances on the station. Amid the fear and drear of cuts, and yet more cuts, Radio 3 has offered its fans an adrenaline boost by suddenly announcing a huge increase in the number of ‘live’ performances on the station. ‘It’s not about cost,’ says Roger Wright, the controller, ‘it’s about the distinctiveness of the Radio 3 brand.’ By the middle of May, he promises, Performance on 3 will be truly live every weekday evening, and not just a specially

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Shameful bias

So you’re the leader of the Netherlands’ youngest, and now second-most-popular political party — and the reason you’re doing so well so soon is that your policies strike a chord with many Dutch. So you’re the leader of the Netherlands’ youngest, and now second-most-popular political party — and the reason you’re doing so well so soon is that your policies strike a chord with many Dutch. You believe in smaller government and lower taxes; you believe nuclear power is a safer bet than nuclear energy; and you believe that creeping Islamisation poses a serious threat to your country’s national identity. And now someone wants to make a guerilla documentary about

Ursula Buchan

Family friendly

‘Can we go to Alton Towers? Please?’ Is there any request that strikes more gloom into the heart of a parent during the half-term holiday than that? The idea of spending an expensive day queuing for terrifying rides, in an environment of tacky, non-sustainable and old-fashioned consumerism, ensured that I steadfastly deprived my children of this ‘fun day out’ throughout their childhood. ‘Can we go to Alton Towers? Please?’ Is there any request that strikes more gloom into the heart of a parent during the half-term holiday than that? The idea of spending an expensive day queuing for terrifying rides, in an environment of tacky, non-sustainable and old-fashioned consumerism, ensured