London
david.cheal
If the power-generating companies in the London area noticed a sudden surge in electricity consumption late on Sunday afternoon, I think I can explain why: many thousands of hair-straighteners and other beautifying devices were doubtless being put to use in the run-up to Lady Gaga’s show at the O2 Arena, the first of two nights in London. This was one of those shows that people got dressed up for, made themselves glamorous for; it was a big night out, and the result, as the O2 Arena filled up, was a sea of very straight and very shiny hair, often decorated with bows and flowers (though I also Read more ...
fisun.guner
From his tall column in Trafalgar Square, Admiral Lord Nelson won’t be able to glimpse the new work on the Fourth Plinth, since he faces the other way. But of all the works that have occupied this space – from Marc Quinn’s Alison Lapper Pregnant, to Antony Gormley’s One & Other – the latest must surely be the one that would please him most: a model of his own ship, HMS Victory, displayed in a huge bottle.From his tall column in Trafalgar Square, Admiral Lord Nelson won’t be able to glimpse the new work on the Fourth Plinth, since he faces the other way. But of all the works that have Read more ...
peter.quinn
An unprecedented second consecutive year for saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins, celebrating his 80th birthday, is one of the many highlights of the 2010 London Jazz Festival announced yesterday. One question immediately springs to mind: which Noël Coward classic will he dust down this year?Other mouth-watering treats include the European premiere of Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman’s new project Highway Rider with Britten Sinfonia, the remarkable bassist-vocalist Esperanza Spalding, and the nimble-fingered octogenarian French pianist Martial Solal (composer of the film score for Godard’s À Read more ...
peter.quinn
A bad cover version can be a dangerous thing. Imagine, for example, that your first encounter with the brilliant Gershwins was Kiri Te Kanawa's egregious Kiri Sings Gershwin. This, potentially, could be so distressing that it might put you off George and Ira for life. In fact, it could put you off music for life. Rather than "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay", Michael Bolton's typically understated take makes you want to throw yourself in. And then there's Sting's John Dowland tribute, Songs from the Labyrinth. This was released over two years ago, so there's a possibility that Dowland has Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It's probably a bit early to start picking the best albums of 2010, but I would seriously consider a legal challenge if Diane Birch's Bible Belt isn't there or thereabouts when the votes are counted. Like a long-lost singer-songwriter classic, it accomplishes the trick of sounding instantly familiar, yet Birch herself doesn't sound quite like any other artist you've heard before. Her voice can be soft and supple, but it also has a raw, rasping quality that can saw through a song like "Choo Choo", with its vamping organ and garage-band guitars. By contrast, in the hymn-like "Forgiveness" she Read more ...
Anonymous
Eight hours of “improvised and experimental music” would not be on everyone’s list of Bank Holiday essentials, and the marathon programme that constitutes the first half of the two-day Freedom of The City festival could have proved daunting for even the free jazz faithful. That the experience turns out to be very far from gruelling is, then, in no small part thanks to the curators, among them such luminaries as Evan Parker and Eddie Prévost.One of the accusations frequently levelled at this type of music is that it all sounds the same, yet the eight acts offer an impressively diverse range of Read more ...
Sarah Kent
The fountains have been switched on at Somerset House, and I watched a group of tourists giggling as they picked their way through the water jets. They obviously hadn’t noticed the cheerful sound of running water coming from the edge of the courtyard, which encourages you to descend some narrow stairs down to the light wells that illuminate the lower floors of Somerset House.Loud gurgling and trickling noises conjure vivid images of babbling brooks and mountain streams tumbling headlong over glistening boulders – of water in its natural state, in other words, which is a far cry from the Read more ...
fisun.guner
Judith Clark is a fashion curator, Adam Phillips a psychoanalyst and writer. In collaboration with Artangel, that font of innovative artistic commissions (including Rachel Whiteread’s House, Michael Landy’s Break Down), they have produced what is perhaps best described as an intervention, rather than an art installation, in Blythe House, the Hammersmith outpost of the V&A.This fortress-like Victorian monolith was once the Post Office Savings Bank’s administrative offices: intangible "savings" were processed here. Now it holds more tangible assets: the reserve collections of the V&A Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Is there such a thing as iPod theatre for a new digital generation? Given the enormous boom in site-specific performances and the growing use of electronic gadgets, the answer seems like yes, and this new show by non zero one - a group of recent graduates from Royal Holloway, University of London - is billed as an interrogation of the “new methods of communication that are designed to connect us over huge distances and in all scenarios”. An example of participant theatre, the 50-minute piece, which opened today, is a good illustration of both the highs and lows of experimental performance.At Read more ...
bruce.dessau
It's not the bobbies on the beat that are getting younger, it's the bands. Bombay Bicycle Club formed while at school in north London's Crouch End and were already making a name for themselves when they left full-time education in 2008. Rock and roll domination is on the curriculum instead, thanks to the success of last year's debut album, I Had the Blues but I Shook Them Loose.Their critical acclaim, being voted Best New Band at the NME Awards earlier this year, for instance, is not entirely a bolt from the blue. Particularly for anyone who believes that talent is genetic. Guitarist Jamie Read more ...
josh.spero
Thanks to the wonders of council applications, theartsdesk can bring you an exclusive preview of Marc Quinn's new sculptures to be placed outside the White Cube gallery on the grass of Hoxton Square.Quinn will be putting two colossal orchids (over two metres squared each), cast in bronze and painted white, in Hoxton Square as part of his new show Allanah, Buck, Catman, Chelsea, Michael, Pamela and Thomas (7 May-26 June).
According to the application, submitted to Hackney Council, The Archaeology of Desire is "based upon a naturalistic Phalaenopsis, a genus of the orchid family, which has Read more ...
sheila.johnston
One evening in 1970, Princess Anne ventured forth from her manor to attend a screening of Bronco Bullfrog at the Mile End ABC. Three decades later, the same cinema, now called the Genesis, hosted a screening of Barney Platts-Mills' debut feature last night in equally ceremonious circumstances: the launch of the East End Film Festival. Rarely seen, indeed almost lost (the original 35-mm negative was salvaged from a rubbish bin at the film lab), Bronco Bullfrog, which will be released nationally on 11 June, emerges as a minor revelation.Bronco Bullfrog might have been made in 1969, but Read more ...