A lot of the reviews of this exhibition talk about how by trying to make a point of difference it positions itself firmly for those already familiar with Kahn’s work, but, coming with no preconceptions, I found it both interesting and educational. Louis Kahn was born in 1901 in what was then Russia but is […]
There is always a danger in reviving a play about youth in which the setting plays such an important role that it will lose its relevance, but this does not seem to have happened at all to Kenneth Lonergan’s play, which premiered in 1996. Granted, its 1982 setting was already over a decade old when […]
Toulouse-Lautrec’s prints and posters are almost one and the same with what we imagine of fin-de-siècle Paris, and I don’t think it would be overstating it to say that some of his images have been reproduced ad nauseum. I thought that this exhibition did a good job of acknowledging our collective image of the Paris […]
Despite the ever-present threat of weary legs and museum fatigue, one thing that is very nice about large museums is the ability to compare the different exhibitions and displays they deem worthy of presenting, and see what similarities and differences there are between them. This was especially the case when I was at the Museum […]
As most critics who have reviewed this exhibition have remarked, the Jeff Koons retrospective is a pretty good farewell to the Whitney’s current building on Madison Avenue. This is the largest survey of one artist’s work staged by the museum, with works over five of six floors, and I would imagine also the most expensive […]
What is with all the romantic comedies about abortion at the moment? I really came away from this plat with the same feeling I would about a film rom com: the complicated female character who has some things to deal with, the slightly flatter characterisation of the male character, who is supportive and nice and […]
Having read through a few reviews of the play, I don’t think I was the only one who disliked the 1970s setting of this staging of Richard III, currently on at Trafalgar Studios with Martin Freeman in the title role. In fact, not having purchased a programme on this occasion, I didn’t really understand the […]
This is a small but focused exhibition which readily achieves its dual aims of presenting the history of colour photography in Russia, and the history of Russia through colour photography. Spread over two floors of the Photographers’ Gallery in Central London, it is divided into chronological sections which show how colour technology developed in Russia […]
Nobody’s Baby Staged in the Paul Hamlyn Hall at the Royal Opera House, which is normally a pre-show bar and restaurant, Nobody’s Baby instead transformed the space into a 1930s American dance hall. And we, as the audience, became spectators at a dance marathon. Depression-era dance marathons, eventually outlawed, preyed on the destitute and […]
I was definitely in my art-geeky element in this exhibition, based on research by the National Gallery’s scientific department, and largely using works from the permanent collection. As the name suggests, it’s about making colour – the exhibition space is divided like a colour wheel, with rooms moving from blue to purple through green, yellow […]