1970s
Music Reissues Weekly: Incident at a Free FestivalSunday, 12 November 2023
“We got to play Stonehenge Festival when it was like just a field, a generator and stage. No rip-off burger joints. No packaged new age culture. Just good British hippiedom. A bunch of scruffy, dirty, bean-burger-eating, spliff-making hippies, and... Read more... |
Women in Revolt!, Tate Britain review - a super important if overwhelming showFriday, 10 November 2023
The soundtrack to Tate Britain’s seminal exhibition Women in Revolt! is a prolonged scream. On film, Gina Birch of the punk band The Raincoats gives vent to her pent-up anger and frustration by yelling at the top of her lungs for 3 minutes (... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Osmo Lindeman - Electronic WorksSunday, 29 October 2023
For Finnish composer Osmo Lindeman, the decision to pursue electronic music was made in 1968 during a visit to Poland. He had recently started using graphical notation for the scores of his compositions and was having problems getting conductors and... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Serge Gainsbourg - L'Homme à tête de chouSunday, 22 October 2023
Marilou lies on the ground. She’s been bludgeoned to death by a fire extinguisher. Its foam covers her body. Her murderer is a forty-something man who has become obsessed with her. She shampoos hair in a barbers, where he first comes across her.... Read more... |
RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology, Barbican review - women fighting to protect the environmentThursday, 19 October 2023
RE/SISTERS is a show about the brave women who’ve been fighting to protect our planet and the artists whose work – mainly in film and photography – is, in itself, a form of protest. The opening section, Extractive Economics demonstrates the problem... Read more... |
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine, Hayward Gallery review - a Japanese photographer uses droll humour to ask big questionsTuesday, 17 October 2023
A polar bear stands guard over the seal pup it has just killed (main picture). How could photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto have got so close to a wild animal at such a dangerous moment? Even if he had a powerful telephoto lens, he’d be risking life and... Read more... |
Album: Agnetha Fältskog - A+Sunday, 15 October 2023
When ABBA split in 1982, Agnetha Fältskog went on to a solo career that was mostly overshadowed by the titanic popularity of her former band. By the 21st century ABBA’s status in pop, especially with the Mamma Mia phenomenon, had become iconic.They... Read more... |
Dalíland review - a tidy portrait of a chaotic artistThursday, 12 October 2023
The director Mary Harron is famous for staying classy while tackling blood-splashy topics – notably the attack on pop art’s leader in I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) and whatever the hell was going on in the Bret Easton Ellis novel that became Harron’s... Read more... |
Philip Guston, Tate Modern review - a compelling look at an artist who derided the KKKThursday, 05 October 2023
At last, after waiting several years, we get to see Philip Guston’s paintings at Tate Modern. His retrospective was scheduled to open in summer 2020 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, but the murder of George Floyd made the institution... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Bowes Road Band - Back in the HCASunday, 01 October 2023
The acronym “HCA” in the title stands for Hornsey College of Art, the North London college which, in late May 1968, was occupied by its students and a few staff in a high-profile protest which went on into that July. What was wanted were changes in... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Shake That Thing - The Blues in Britain 1963-1973Sunday, 24 September 2023
In September 1955, the grandly named London Skiffle Centre set up for business each Thursday in a room above the Round House pub in Soho’s Wardour Street. A prime mover in the venture was blues acolyte Cyril Davies. Two months after the opening,... Read more... |
Marina Abramović, Royal Academy review - young performers stand in for the absent artistSaturday, 23 September 2023
One of the most cherished memories of my 40 plus years as an art critic is of easing my way between Marina Abramović and her partner Ulay. They were standing either side of a doorway at Documenta in Kassel, Germany, leaving just enough room for... Read more... |
