modernism
Wozzeck, English National OperaSunday, 12 May 2013
If you should take your seats prematurely in the London Coliseum you’ll find yourself confronted with a group of serving British soldiers. You’ll shift a little uneasily under their gaze. There they are, staring, smoking, loitering; there we are, on... Read more... |
Great Artists: In Their Own Words, BBC FourThursday, 09 May 2013
After the marvellous Great Thinkers: In Their Own Words, the BBC has once again rummaged through its documentary archives, this time to see what artists have to say for themselves. Artists are often not the most loquacious breed, which is why they... Read more... |
Saloua Raouda Choucair, Tate ModernFriday, 19 April 2013
Saloua Raouda Choucair began her career as a painter, initially studying under Lebanon’s two leading landscape artists, Mustafa Farroukh and Omar Onsi. In the late 1940s, she trained in the studio of Fernande Léger while studying at the Ecole des... Read more... |
George Bellows: Modern American Life, Royal AcademyWednesday, 13 March 2013
One can immediately see the influence of Manet and Whistler, especially Whistler, the fellow American who spent most of his life in Paris and London. George Bellows, the first quintessentially American artist of the 20th century, made famous in his... Read more... |
The Bride and the Bachelors, Barbican Art GalleryMonday, 18 February 2013
It is often argued that Marcel Duchamp is the single most influential artist of the 20th century, and that Fountain, the porcelain urinal he signed R. Mutt and presented to the world in 1917, the single most influential artwork. But that’s not... Read more... |
Becoming Picasso: Paris 1901, Courtauld GalleryMonday, 18 February 2013
In Yo Picasso!, a self-portrait from 1901 (pictured below, Private Collection), the 19-year-old Picasso is already projecting an inimitable bravura, emphasised by his dashing orange cravat. He looks out at us with that mesmerising and legendary,... Read more... |
Saer Doliau, Finborough TheatreWednesday, 06 February 2013
Last weekend it was the 50th anniversary of an important event in postwar Welsh history. In early February 1963 the Welsh Language Society – Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg – protested for the first time about the right of Welsh speakers to live their... Read more... |
Jonathan Meades: The Joy of Essex, BBC FourWednesday, 30 January 2013
For a man who lives in an agreeable region of France, Jonathan Meades grew strangely passionate in the course of this fascinating excursion around Essex. The thuggish-looking narrator travelled by small, functional Toyota rather than Magical... Read more... |
CD: Nils Frahm - ScrewsSunday, 09 December 2012
Although he has been recording since 2005, it was his 2011 album, Felt, which set Nils Frahm apart from the ever-swelling tide of modern classical minimalists. It was so intimate, so subtle, it felt almost like it shouldn’t be shared. The follow up... Read more... |
Cage Rattling, King's PlaceWednesday, 14 November 2012
In 1991, the Basque performance artist Esther Ferrar wrote a letter to modern music’s inventive genius, John Cage, on the future of anarchism. Ferrar’s letter – written in the year before Cage died – was in fact a reply to a question about anarchy’s... Read more... |
Frieze Masters Art Fair, Regent's ParkSaturday, 13 October 2012
Things have come to a pretty pass when the old is a breath of fresh air and the new just old hat, but the Frieze Masters art fair in Regent's Park, which closes this weekend, is just that. New sister to Frieze London, which features art since 2000,... Read more... |
Parade's End, Series Finale, BBC TwoSaturday, 22 September 2012
"There used to be among families...a position, a certain...call it 'parade'." So stammered Benedict Cumberbatch's rigidly principled, increasingly broken Christopher Tietjens at the climax of last week's penultimate Parade's End, echoing his own... Read more... |
