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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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
THE BLOCKADE SWALLOW (Smokestack Books, £8.99) is a selection of poems by the Soviet writer Olga Berggolts (1910-75), whose daily broadcasts on Leningrad radio during the Nazi blockade of the city became a symbol of the city’s refusal to surrender:
“The hungry, cruel, and dark winter / forty-one to forty-two will never be forgotten, / nor the fierce artillery fire, / nor the horrors of the bombing in forty-three. / The ground beneath the city lies pierced and broken. / Not a single life, comrades, will be forgotten.”
The book covers the years from 1925-60, bearing eloquent witness to some of the most tragic events of the 20th century — from the NEP years and the Terror (when Berggolts was imprisoned for two years), through war and blockade, to the disappointment of the post-war years:
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