mon 21/05/2012

Visual Arts reviews, news & interviews

theartsdesk in Leeds: OverWorlds & UnderWorlds

Graham Rickson

It’s cold, grey and damp. Welcome to Leeds. The city centre has grown more homogenous, less distinctive since I arrived here in the 1980s, but there are still delights to be found.There’s an art gallery with a very decent collection of 20th-century British art, adjoining the Henry Moore Sculpture Institute. At the other end of the city centre, on a site once occupied by an enormous utopian housing development, sits the West Yorkshire Playhouse. The building looks more like a large branch of...

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The Queen: Art and Image, National Portrait Gallery

Marina Vaizey

The Queen is the first mass-media monarch, and still probably the most ubiquitously depicted person in history. Her 60 years on the throne is only exceeded by Victoria, and her reign has coincided, of course, with photography, film and television. The profusion of royal imagery is exaggerated and exacerbated by the cult of celebrity and the new technology of the internet and social networking. This has led to an overwhelming sense that the public has the right to know the most...

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Prunella Clough, Annely Juda

Marina Vaizey

Prunella Clough, 1919–1999, was one of the most idiosyncratic and original British artists of the postwar period. Her art is reticent, shy, subtle -...

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Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands,...

Jasper Rees

Wordsworth would not be happy. The bard of Grasmere once wrote a poem deploring the new-fangled habit of tourists wandering about the lakes with a...

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Exposed: The Late Flowering of Ana Tzarev

Jasper Rees

“It was a beautiful sunny day and we were just doing our work. All of a sudden the double doors opened of this gorgeous school on the waterfront,...

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Edmund de Waal, Waddesdon Manor

Marina Vaizey

These dozen installations in a stately home are witty and beautiful, elegant and affecting

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Collect 2012

theartsdesk

The international fair for contemporary objects, plus theartsdesk in-conversation event and ticket offer

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Picasso Prints: The Vollard Suite, British Museum

Fisun Güner

The complete series of the artist's masterful etchings, never before shown in the UK

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Bauhaus: Art as Life, Barbican

Sarah Kent

A show focusing on life and work in the famous German art school concentrates on process as well as product

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Turner Prize 2012 shortlist

Fisun Güner

A so-so selection with a clear popular favourite

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Out of Focus: Photography, Saatchi Gallery

Sarah Kent

Saatchi's eclectic taste produces one of his best shows to date

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Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2012

Caroline Boyle

The biennial celebration reaches into every corner of the city

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theartsdesk in Liverpool: The Sea Odyssey

Glyn Môn Hughes

Titanic-themed street puppeteering on an epic scale takes over Liverpool for the weekend

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Cotton: Global Threads, Whitworth Art Gallery

Fisun Güner

An exhibition exploring the importance of cotton as a global commodity could have given us more of a history lesson

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Liza Lou, White Cube Hoxton

Steven Gambardella

Meticulous bead 'paintings' which are quietly seductive

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Ron Mueck, Hauser & Wirth

Sarah Kent

The model-maker with magic in his fingers

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Jamie Shovlin: Various Arrangements, Haunch of Venison

Josh Spero

Clever-clever paintings feel conceited, false and self-satisfied

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Footnote: A brief history of british art

The National Gallery, the British Museum, Tate Modern, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Royal Collection - Britain's art galleries and museums are world-renowned, not only for the finest of British visual arts but core collections of antiquities and artworks from great world civilisations.

Holbein_Ambasssadors_1533The glory of British medieval art lay first in her magnificent cathedrals and manuscripts, but kings, aristocrats, scientists and explorers became the vital forces in British art, commissioning Holbein or Gainsborough portraits, founding museums of science or photography, or building palatial country mansions where architecture, craft and art united in a luxuriously cultured way of life (pictured, Holbein's The Ambassadors, 1533 © National Gallery). A rich physician Sir Hans Sloane launched the British Museum with his collection in 1753, and private collections were the basis in the 19th century for the National Gallery, the V&A, the National Portrait Gallery, the original Tate gallery and the Wallace Collections.

British art tendencies have long passionately divided between romantic abstraction and a deep-rooted love of narrative and reality. While 19th-century movements such as the Pre-Raphaelite painters and Victorian Gothic architects paid homage to decorative medieval traditions, individualists such as George Stubbs, William Hogarth, John Constable, J M W Turner and William Blake were radicals in their time.

In the 20th century sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, painters Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, architects Zaha Hadid and Richard Rogers embody the contrasts between fantasy and observation. More recently another key patron, Charles Saatchi, championed the sensational Britart conceptual art explosion, typified by Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. The Arts Desk reviews all the major exhibitions of art and photography as well as interviewing leading creative figures in depth about their careers and working practices. Our writers include Fisun Guner, Judith Flanders, Sarah Kent, Mark Hudson, Sue Steward and Josh Spero.

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Booking Now

Dance

23Jul
Peter Schaufuss's Swan Lake, London Coliseum

23-28 July: Peter Schaufuss Ballet from Denmark shows Schaufuss's Tchaikovsky Trilogy - his wholesale reinterpretations of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker in his own style. All three are played end to end on the Saturday. Swan Lake...

Dance
24Jul
Peter Schaufuss's Sleeping Beauty, London Coliseum

23-28 July: Peter Schaufuss Ballet from Denmark shows Schaufuss's Tchaikovsky Trilogy - his wholesale reinterpretations of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker in his own style. All three are played end to end on the Saturday. Swan Lake...

Dance
25Jul
Peter Schaufuss's The Nutcracker, London Coliseum

23-28 July: Peter Schaufuss Ballet from Denmark shows Schaufuss's Tchaikovsky Trilogy - his wholesale reinterpretations of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker in his own style. All three are played end to end on the Saturday. Swan Lake...

Dance
03Aug
ENO, Swan Lake, London Coliseum

3-11 August: English National Ballet - Swan Lake in Derek Deane's fine theatre production (not the same as his arena one) Booking: http://www.eno.org

Dance
19Sep
Swan Lake, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Lowry Salford

19-22 September, Swan Lake, The Lowry, Salford. Sir Peter Wright's superb production created with former ballerina Galina Samsova in 1991 for BRB, designed with marvellous luxury by Philip Prowse. booking: www.brb.org.uk

Dance
26Sep
Birmingham Royal Ballet triple bill, Birmingham Hippodrome

26-29 September, Opposites Attract mixed bill: Jessica Lang’s Lyric Pieces / David Bintley’s Take Five / Hans van Manen’s Grosse Fuge, Birmingham Hippodrome. A triple bill features US choreographer Jessica Lang in her UK premiere, set to Grieg's...

Dance
08Oct
Swan Lake, Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House

8 Oct-24 Nov, Swan Lake (20 performances). Anthony Dowell's production of the Petipa/Ivanov classic designed in lavish Art Nouveau style by Yolanda Sonnabend. Casts: Odette+Odile/ Prince/ Rothbart Oct 8, 13M, Nov 10E Nunez/Soarez/Saunders Oct 10,...

Dance
03Nov
Young British choreographer triple, Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House

3-14 Nov, Viscera (COMPANY PREMIERE)/ Infra/ Fool's Paradise (6 pfs). The first mixed bill of Kevin O'Hare's directorship joins three of today's strongest ballet voices at the Royal. Liam Scarlett's work was created earlier this year for Miami City...

Dance
08Nov
Nutcracker, Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House

8 Dec-15 Jan - Peter Wright's beautiful, high-style staging of The Nutcracker to Tchaikovsky's ever-magical music Casts: Dec 8, 13 Marquez/McRae Dec 10, 14 Nunez/Soares Dec 11, 23M, Jan 2M Morera/Bonelli Dec 27M Hamilton/Trzensimiech Dec 27E, Jan 8...

Dance
17Nov
MacMillan triple: Concerto/ Hermanas/ Requiem, Royal Ballet

17 Nov- 5 Dec: MacMillan night: Concerto, Las Hermanas, Requiem Casts: Nov 17, 27 Choe/McRae/Lamb/Hirano/Cuthbertson* Yanowsky*/Morera*/Hamilton*/Soares* Benjamin/Nunez/Pennefather/Acosta/Cervera Nov 21 Takada*/Campbell*/Nunez/Pennefather/Calvert...

Dance
21Nov
Cinderella, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham Hippodrome

21 November-9 December, Cinderella, Birmingham Hippodrome. BRB's Christmas seasonal offering is David Bintley’s Cinderella premiered at Birmingham Hippodrome in November 2010, to celebrate BRB's 20th anniversary. With breathtaking designs by John...

Dance
12Dec
Wind in the Willows, Royal Ballet, Linbury Studio Theatre

12 Dec-5 Jan (Linbury Studio Theatre), The Wind in the Willows (30 pfs). Will Tuckett's charming stagework based on the Kenneth Grahame children's classic has a delicious dressing-up box quality. Booking: http://www.roh.org.uk

Dance
22Dec
Firebird/In the Night/Raymonda, Royal Ballet

22 Dec-11 Jan, The Firebird/ In the Night/ Raymonda Act III (6 pfs). Fokine's glittering fairytale to Stravinsky's magical score marks 100 years since the work was first performed at Covent Garden. Jerome Robbins' In the Night is a romantic...

Dance
19Jan
Onegin, Royal Ballet

19 Jan-8 Feb, Onegin (13 pfs). John Cranko's romantic ballet retelling of Pushkin's story of an aloof man who comes to regret breaking the heart of young Tatyana has become a favourite with ballerinas everywhere. Music adapted from Tchaikovsky -...

Dance
12Feb
La Valse/ Monotones/ Marguerite & Armand, Royal Ballet

12-23 Feb, Ashton night: La Valse/ Thaïs/ Voices of Spring/ Monotones I...

Dance
15Feb
Aladdin premiere, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham Hippodrome

15-23 February 2013, Aladdin (UK PREMIERE), Birmingham Hippodrome. David Bintley tells the magical tale of love, trickery and triumph in a production created originally for the National Ballet of Japan in 2008, and now aimed to be a popular family...

Dance
22Feb
Ratmansky & Wheeldon world premieres, Royal Ballet

22 Feb-14 Mar, Apollo/ New Wheeldon (WORLD PREMIERE)/ New Ratmansky (WORLD PREMIERE) (5 pfs). Headline news that the two leading ballet choreographers of the world today each unveil a creation for the Royal Ballet. This will be Ratmansky's first...

Dance
08Jun
Coppelia, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham Hippodrome

4-8 June 2013, Coppélia, Birmingham Hippodrome. Peter Wright’s enchanting production of this joyous and witty ballet about a girl whose boyfriend two-times her with a doll is a celebration of love, with a sparkling score by Delibes, designs by Peter...

Dance
19Jun
Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham Hippodrome

19-22 June 2013, Giselle, Birmingham Hippodrome. David Bintley and Galina Samsova’s production, designed by Hayden Griffin. In the ruins of an abbey Giselle tries to stop the ghosts from killing the man who betrayed her love. Giselle stands...

Dance

Theatre

24Jul
The Doctor's Dilemma, National Theatre

in rep at the Lyttelton (from 24 July) is G B Shaw's The Doctor's Dilemma

Theatre
24Jul
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, National Theatre

A stage production of Mark Haddon's novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time has been created by Simon Stephens for the Lyttelton, directed by Marianne Elliott (from 24 July), with Niamh Cusack and Una Stubbs among the cast.

Theatre
28Jul
London Road, National Theatre

London Road, the successful music theatre production by Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork on the Ipswich murders, returns for a second run to the Olivier (28 July-6 Sep)

Theatre
20Sep
Mademoiselle Julie (Juliette Binoche), Barbican Theatre

20-29 September, Mademoiselle Julie, Barbican Theatre (150 mins, no interval). Juliette Binoche stars as August Strindberg’s tragic heroine who fatally crosses class borders, in a French-language version directed by Frédéric Fisbach. Age guidance:...

Theatre
17Nov
The Count of Monte Cristo, National Theatre

Richard Bean (author of One Man, Two Guv'nors) will adapt Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo for a family show that opens at the Olivier Theatre on 17 November

Theatre

Classical music

25Jul
Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis & London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, Barbican Hall

Wynton Marsalis' Swing Symphony Feat. Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis...

Classical music
22Sep
Jansen, LSO, Gergiev, Barbican Hall

London Symphony Orchestra 2012-13 Season Opening Concert Valery Gergiev: Brahms...

Classical music
30Sep
LSO Donatella Flick Conducting competition, Barbican Hall

Final of LSO biennial conducting competition for EU conductors under 35. Jury includes Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir Colin Davis, violinist Nikolaj Znaider, pianist Imogen Cooper, mezzo Sarah Connolly

Classical music

New music

25Jul
Wynton Marsalis/ LSO/ Simon Rattle, Barbican Hall

25-26 Jul, Swing Symphony (Symphony No. 3): Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra, Barbican Hall. The UK premiere of jazz legend Wynton Marsalis’ symphonic meditation on the...

New music
07Oct
Jane Birkin sings Serge Gainsbourg, Cadogan Hall

Jane Birkin is no stranger to performing the songs of her late partner Serge Gainsbourg. But this is a sole London outing for a show she has performed to rave reviews in America. It's a new slant: she is performing the songs with Japanese jazz...

New music
15Oct
Johnny Hallyday, Royal Albert Hall, London

The French legend beams down for two London shows – what must be his first for over four decades. Buy tickets: http://www.ticketline.co.uk/johnny-hallyday#bio

New music
16Oct
Johnny Hallyday, Royal Albert Hall, London

The French legend beams down for two London shows – what must be his first for over four decades. Buy tickets: http://www.ticketline.co.uk/johnny-hallyday#bio

New music
30Oct
Efterklang, Barbican, London

Denmark’s experimental art-pop trio are playing their only UK dates of 2012 in October. They will perform music from their forthcoming album Piramida as an expanded six piece, and will be accompanied by the Northern Sinfonia. Arrangements are by...

New music
05Nov
Patricia Kaas Sings Piaf, Royal Albert Hall

French superstar marks 50 years since Piaf’s death with 'Kaas Chante Piaf'. Twenty-one of Piaf’s classics will be performed alongside images of Piaf. Orchestration and arrangements are by Golden Globe nominee Abel Korzeniowski, who recently composed...

New music
16Nov
Nouvelle Vague performs ‘Dawn Of Innocence’, Hammersmith Apollo

Billed as a ‘Musical Directed by Jean-Charles De Castelbajac’, Nouvelle Vague an French fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac collaborate on a high-concept theatre performance and gig, with concept, stage design and costumes by de Castelbajac...

New music

Visual arts

27 (All day)Jul (All day)
Another London, Tate Britain

This exhibition brings together some of the biggest names in international photography to explore the ways photographers for whom London was a foreign city saw and represented the subject in their distinctive ways. Artists include Bill Brandt, Henri...

Visual arts

Opera

15Aug
Carousel, Opera North, Barbican Theatre

15 August-15 September, Carousel, Opera North, Barbican Theatre (170 mins) – see website for schedule. Leeds’ Opera North return to the Barbican for their first long run with a new production of Rodgers...

Opera
24Sep
Das Rheingold, Royal Opera

24 September-26 October:

Opera