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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2021 Round-up with Andy Croft
Andy Croft has been talking to other poets about the books of poetry they have most enjoyed reading in the last 12 months
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
MIKE CROWLEY
Simon Armitage’s Magnetic Field (Faber) is about the village of Marsden, midway between Huddersfield and Rochdale, where Armitage grew up.
Marsden has been a muse for Armitage for 30 years now, serving as a canvas as well as a subject.
On Marsden he paints the ordinary, sometimes the banal, as extraordinary and beautiful. He gives everyday actions and chores — home improvement, cutting the hedge, a walk to the shops, family meals — a sacramental significance.
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