Arts Reviews

The good, bad and ugly in arts and exhbitions

Saturday

Andrew Lambirth

A place to dream

As regular readers of this column will know, I am not an admirer of large exhibitions. The exhaustive is exhausting, and I refuse to believe that the general visitor can absorb the contents of a blockbuster show on a single viewing. Of course in these days of enforced leisure, more and more viewers are able to return to exhibitions (particularly if mounted by institutions of which they are members), though the time and expense involved deters those with jobs from making repeated visits. Vast exhibitions are designed to bring glory on the host museum and garner headlines as well as visitor numbers. The sheer size of them is supposed to

Olivia Glazebrook

The Great Escape

Hollywood’s gloss on reality makes Olivia Glazebrook want to weep. Why can’t the Americans learn from the French? When Hollywood wants to captivate an audience of ‘grown-ups’ — those who have become desperate to escape the awful dreariness and suffering of their everyday lives — it shows them an alternative soothing world into which they can be plugged, for just a few hours. These poor suckers — we’ll call them ‘cinema-goers’ — yearn for this glossy, idealised world, which will be not a dream (because dreams can be puzzling and obtuse) but a calming vision, populated by beautiful characters who will look human, but not too human. These characters will

Deborah Ross

Enough is enough

Really? This was necessary? Why? What’s the point? OK, I suppose revisiting Wall Street all these years later is timely, given the banking crisis and resultant global meltdown. Really? This was necessary? Why? What’s the point? OK, I suppose revisiting Wall Street all these years later is timely, given the banking crisis and resultant global meltdown. I’ll allow you that, albeit grudgingly. But this is celebratory in tone, rather than outraged. You will want to shake it and shout, ‘Goddamn it, get angry!’ It sheds no new light on anything. It says zilch. There is no point. It simply recycles the same morality fable, and the same characters, right down

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Short and sweet | 9 October 2010

Who’s my favourite stage actress? Since you ask, Olivia Williams in Shakespeare and Nancy Carroll in anything. Who’s my favourite stage actress? Since you ask, Olivia Williams in Shakespeare and Nancy Carroll in anything. Currently, she’s starring in the weirdest show I’ve ever seen at the Almeida in Islington. Weird because it’s so predictable. The Almeida likes to attract the purists rather than the tourists and it seeks out half-forgotten masterpieces or wacky new experiments. If you want Carpathian tragedy or biblical mock-epic or Inuit slapstick, then the Almeida’s the place to look. A stage version of a David Mamet movie is positively abnormal by its standards. House of Games,

George Hull

Family Circle

‘We’re a beastly family, and I hate us!’ laments Sorel Bliss in Hay Fever. And at first it seems all four Blisses share that sentiment. ‘We’re a beastly family, and I hate us!’ laments Sorel Bliss in Hay Fever. And at first it seems all four Blisses share that sentiment. Each has invited a guest to their house in Cookham, and appears to be hoping not just for a weekend of feverish passion but also for a permanent escape: as much from themselves as from the others. When the guests arrive, however, the Blisses taunt and ignore them by turns. As for feverish passion, it seems readily transferable. Sorel exchanges

Michael Tanner

Visual tricks

Any seasoned opera-goer is likely to have had the experience of attending a performance where most things are right, but the overall impression is dismal; and also where, even more puzzlingly, most things are wrong but somehow the total effect is good or even overwhelming. To some extent it is relative to the work being performed, but not entirely; and to a much greater extent it depends on what your expectations are — I always try to have low ones, but expectations aren’t voluntary, alas. Last Sunday’s performance of Tristan und Isolde at the Royal Festival Hall was, emphatically, the second kind of occasion. It’s not hard to list what

Giannandrea Poesio

Faltering partnership

According to some, Onegin is the ultimate expression of John Cranko’s choreographic and theatrical genius. According to some, Onegin is the ultimate expression of John Cranko’s choreographic and theatrical genius. I disagree, for I think that other works are a much better testament to his unique creativity. But I like Onegin because it is one of those works in which choreography and acting go seamlessly hand in hand, thus creating a tension that makes one overlook and forgive much of the poor choreography — of which there is a good handful. That, though, is only when things work as they should. When they do not, the outcome can be dreary,

Simon Hoggart

All about sex

The Song of Lunch (BBC2) was a rum old go. Christopher Reid’s poem, about a publisher half-hoping to rekindle a past love affair over an Italian meal, was read out by Alan Rickman, who acted the publisher and recreated the lines on film. The Song of Lunch (BBC2) was a rum old go. Christopher Reid’s poem, about a publisher half-hoping to rekindle a past love affair over an Italian meal, was read out by Alan Rickman, who acted the publisher and recreated the lines on film. Thus, when the poet wrote, ‘he drinks until the ice rests on his upper lip’, you see the ice, actually resting on his upper

Kate Chisholm

Memory’s weird ways

‘She goes off to the Maldives. That’s all I can remember about her,’ laughed Alan Bennett as he struggled to recall the name of the Australian physiotherapist he’d invented for his TV play about Miss Fozzard and her feet. ‘She goes off to the Maldives. That’s all I can remember about her,’ laughed Alan Bennett as he struggled to recall the name of the Australian physiotherapist he’d invented for his TV play about Miss Fozzard and her feet. Bennett had volunteered to subject himself to a Mastermind-style grilling from Mark Lawson (for Radio 4’s Front Row) after one of the contestants on the TV quiz had chosen Bennett’s plays as

Saturday

Andrew Lambirth

An artist of the sinking world

Julian Perry (born 1960) paints images of genuine topicality in an immaculate high-definition realist style. Julian Perry (born 1960) paints images of genuine topicality in an immaculate high-definition realist style. His last show in 2007 dealt with the allotment sheds bulldozed by the relentless encroachment of the Olympic site. Since then he has been painting pictures of coastal erosion, visiting locations around England and composing hallucinatory images of deracination and loss. ‘Clifftop with Fridge Freezers’ was one of the first of the new series. I asked him to describe the subject. ‘It depicts a dairy that has fallen victim to what I think is called “rotational slump”, when alluvial till, or glacial

Roderick Conway-Morris

Sculpture: Earth to earth

The park was founded nearly 25 years ago by a trio of friends from Borgo Valsugana, a small town near Trento in the Italian Alps: Carlotta Strobele, a philosophy graduate whose Viennese family’s connections with the area go back to when the region formed part of the Austro–Hungarian Empire; Emanuele Montibeller, a former market trader in fabrics and a local councillor; and Enrico Ferrari, an architect — all of whom shared a passion for contemporary art. It now covers a wide area in Val di Sella, a secluded valley of forest, glades and rolling meadows, high above Borgo, at the end of a narrow road that zigzags its way up

Susan Moore

Art fairs: Satellite superiority

It is a critical moment for the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris — and for the French art trade. It is a critical moment for the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris — and for the French art trade. For this year’s edition of this most august art and antiques fair (which ended last week) — ostensibly celebrating its 25th anniversary — came as a real shock. It was not that the fair was poor; it was simply underwhelming. How can it be that this once peerless event is no longer distinguishable from any other good international fine art and antiques fair? First, there was only a handful of outstanding stands

John McEwen

Liberating Visions

Victor Willing (1928–88) is perhaps the least classifiable of the brilliant early-1950s Slade generation, which includes his wife Paula Rego. Victor Willing (1928–88) is perhaps the least classifiable of the brilliant early-1950s Slade generation, which includes his wife Paula Rego. So it is uniquely appropriate that this first major posthumous exhibition should be at the beautiful museum built in her honour and opened last year. Willing’s career is dramatically divided. In his twenties he was briefly successful with portraits and still-lives. Then there is a blank 20 years before a last decade of remarkable imaginative paintings, when his art, in Paula Rego’s words, ‘moves backwards and forwards between the figurative

Deborah Ross

Women on top | 2 October 2010

Although Made in Dagenham is far from perfect and has a particular fondness for those impromptu speeches which turn out to be stirringly spot-on, it is so warm-hearted and affectionate it wouldn’t be right to take against it. Although Made in Dagenham is far from perfect and has a particular fondness for those impromptu speeches which turn out to be stirringly spot-on, it is so warm-hearted and affectionate it wouldn’t be right to take against it. It would be like kicking a puppy or, perhaps, randomly plonking a cat in a wheelie bin, of which, I believe, there has even been a recorded incidence. It is also just such a

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Coalition wear and tear

Let’s talk about Tucker. The Beeb’s mockumentary The Thick of It has been hailed as a brilliantly incisive glimpse into the corridors of power, and its diabolical protagonist, the scheming spin-merchant Malcolm Tucker, is regarded as a hilarious portrait of a modern political propagandist. That’s one view, anyway. Maybe I’ve got a blind spot. Maybe my sense of humour’s gone missing. Maybe I romanticise the ideals of public service because my mum and dad worked in Whitehall, but I’ve never understood the praise heaped on this cruel and distorted fantasy. It’s possible to overlook the relentless swearing, the vapid characterisation and the ever-predictable storylines. It’s even possible, although it’s much

Kate Chisholm

Anti-depressant

‘Get inside the creative mind,’ urges the website of Studio 360, an innovative radio programme based in New York. ‘Get inside the creative mind,’ urges the website of Studio 360, an innovative radio programme based in New York. Set up by Kurt Andersen (of Spy magazine), it offers a weekly magazine programme about the arts, a sort of Front Row crossed with Night Waves. It’s intriguing, thought-provoking and just as good as anything produced by the BBC. The trouble is you have to be a wireless genius to work out how to listen to it if you’re driving through New England and don’t have access to a podcast or computer.

James Delingpole James Delingpole

House rules | 2 October 2010

The other weekend the Fawn and I were invited to stay at Chilham Castle. Obviously, if you’re Charles Moore, this is no big deal because it’s the kind of thing you do 24/7, 365 days of the year. For us, though — me especially, the Fawn being slightly posher than me — it was a revelation. ‘Bloody hell!’ I thought. ‘This is totally fantastic. Why isn’t my life like this all the time?’ And I found myself wishing dear Hugh Massingberd were still alive. He would have understood perfectly when I rang him up to boast. Private Eye called him ‘Massivesnob’ but as Hugh knew snobbery has little to do

Andrew Petrie

Blu-ray earns its stripes

Peter Greenaway’s A Zed & Two Noughts, recently released on Blu-ray disc by the BFI, proves that the high-definition format isn’t just for blockbusters: it could have been invented for the British director’s first collaboration with the legendary cinematographer Sacha Vierny, a partnership which made explicit Greenaway’s debt to French auteur Alain Resnais and introduced the meticulous colour-coding that would characterise later films such as The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover. Greenaway’s hallmarks (Flemish painting, copious nudity) abound, but he also finds time to consider whether zebras are white with black stripes or black with white stripes (a question also pondered, and unanswered, more recently in Michel

Saturday

Amander Baillieu

Building block

Britain’s architects can produce the best designs in the world, says Amanda Baillieu. So why aren’t any on display at the Venice Architecture Biennale? Something has gone very wrong for the British at the Venice Architecture Biennale. This three-month event may play second fiddle to the older and larger Art Biennale, but for architects it is meant to be the only festival where they can let rip, free from the restraints of budgets, planning and bureaucracy. They come to gossip, to see what their rivals are up to and schmooze clients. Even Norman Foster has dropped by to talk up his firm’s plan for Hong Kong’s new £1.8 billion arts

Andrew Lambirth

Weaving a spell

We tend to take for granted the fact that the V&A houses one of the great wonders of the Italian High Renaissance: Raphael’s remarkable tapestry cartoons celebrating the lives of St Peter and St Paul. We tend to take for granted the fact that the V&A houses one of the great wonders of the Italian High Renaissance: Raphael’s remarkable tapestry cartoons celebrating the lives of St Peter and St Paul. These tapestries were designed for the Sistine Chapel to be hung around the lowest tier of the walls on ceremonial occasions, and thus had to complement (if not compete with) Michelangelo’s awesome ceiling decoration. Raphael excelled himself in the inventiveness