1970s
Music Reissues Weekly: Osmo Lindeman - Electronic WorksSunday, 29 October 2023For 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 2023Marilou 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 2023RE/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 2023A 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 2023When 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 2023The 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 2023At 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 2023The 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 2023In 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 2023One 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... |
AngelHeaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan and T Rex review - musical doc falls between two stoolsThursday, 14 September 2023Seeking to be both a documentary and a musical tribute to Marc Bolan, AngelHeaded Hipster doesn’t quite pull it off on either count. It’s based around the making of an album (whence the film gets its title) of versions of Bolan’s songs by an... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Keith Levene and The ClashSunday, 27 August 2023Forty-seven years ago this week, a new band called The Clash were seen by a paying audience in London for the first time. On Sunday 29 August 1976 they played Islington’s Screen on the Green cinema, billed between Manchester’s Buzzcocks – their... Read more... |