Oxford was full of Chinese tourists, yet just one young couple had made their way to Gallery 11 at the Ashmolean. This exhibition – timely, given the recent significant change in Chinese law on national ethnic integration – is a subtle collection of mostly 20th-century works. It looks with studied care at how minority ethnic… Read More
Walked in on a whim, walked out ashamed I’d never heard of her. Van Herpen fuses materials science and couture into dresses that look organic despite being anything but — alien goddess in one room, skeleton in the next, cracking bone soundtrack included. One petty grumble: not enough footage of the clothes being worn, because… Read More
Most of the internationally famous names (Courbet, Brueghel the Younger) hanging here have one or two lesser works on display. Nothing to get the heart fluttering. The collection’s strength lies in Alsatian artists who are highly regarded, but not household names. The Benner twins (Emmanuel and Jean) feature heavily, but it’s local hero Jean-Jacques Henner… Read More
Loved this mind-bending deep-cuts retrospective from the godfather of op-art. From black & white abstract studies, to 3D works playing tricks with light and shadow, through to geometric optical illusions, you’d be curmudgeonly not to at least respect the vision and execution, even if the aesthetics weren’t your thing. What made the exhibition most compelling… Read More
Timed tickets (bought earlier that morning) for the win. Jumping the queue, when the queue is standing in 40C temperatures, brought a certain joy. Once inside though, the crowds were clumpy as people moved from one famous work of art to another. Klimt’s The Kiss is the most famous work on display. Full confession: I’m… Read More
Anni Albers’ textiles had a soothing quality, much needed as we escaped the searing Vienna heat. Amid the imperious Belvedere Palace complex’s baroque lower galleries, the deceptive simplicity of Albers’ work – from Bauhaus to Black Mountain College and beyond – lulled me into a quiet comfort. Her textiles merited close inspection thanks to her… Read More
Where better to go on a scorching summer day than underground. Nowhere, that’s where. Better still if underground is a set of three cavernous structures that used to supply Brno with water, but have been drained and turned into an attraction. The tanks have only been opened in their entirety for a couple of years,… Read More
Having thought the temporary exhibition was the whole thing, “GASP” there’s more. A lot more. “WOWZER!” The punchy approach to this Belgian national obsession (too strong?) is mercifully light – one hopes deliberately so – on The Troubling Adventures of Colonial Tintin. The standout was an immersive exhibition on Seuls (Alone), a fantasy children’s comic… Read More
A good, but far from great interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s better-known plays. Productions of HV are famous for being tuned to the prevailing sentiments of the time, but this version didn’t seem to know what it was trying to say beyond the very obvious. Alfred Enoch sadly didn’t have the heft for Henry and… Read More
Post-industrial Roubaix seems an unlikely setting for an art-deco masterpiece. The former communal swimming baths – built when sunburst stained-glass windows were de rigueur – had been saved by the town once; so successfully it needed a major expansion, completed in 2018. It was crowded on our visit – but no less beguiling. There is… Read More
Waldemar Januszczak is my favourite TV art critic (James Fox is second in case anyone cares). In The Art Mysteries, Januszczak showed just how much can be done in a 30-minute documentary. Each of the four episodes featured a painting by a giant of post impressionism: Van Gogh, Seurat, Gauguin and Cezanne. Januszczak delved into… Read More
It’s the fourth and apparently final outing for Rob Brydon, Steve Coogan and Michael Winterbottom – the George Martin to Steve and Rob’s John and Paul. Once again, the result is a series of gorgeous backdrops for Rob and Steve to needle each other and do their impressions. If you didn’t like the original Trip… Read More
Is there much left to say about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? Every industry loves a bit of navel gazing, and no-one gazes at his own navel as much as Quentin Tarantino. I watched this at home on New Year’s Eve with family and friends and we hadn’t realised it was so so so… Read More
Nick Mohammed has come up with a little gem here. If you liked W1A and Twenty Twelve then this ensemble sitcom set in the cyber warfare division of GCHQ will be up your street. David Schwimmer is great as the NSA liaison officer, though he plays it exactly as you’d expect David Schwimmer to play… Read More
Government wobbles in face of regional anarchy caused by natural phenomenon… Cobra, Sky’s oddly prescient Whitehall-and-beyond drama, promised more than it ultimately delivered. The idea was good, and there were some plausible plot lines along with some very implausible ones. But after five good tension-building episodes, the final part seemed rushed with major incidents glossed… Read More
Northern Exposure as directed by Tarantino. It’s frankly astonishing that I’m still watching this after 19 episodes. Tin Star’s third series will be the last and thank god for that. Tim Roth is the only thing keeping this cliché-ridden wannabe noir from sinking under the weight of its own ridiculousness. Series 1 relied far too… Read More
If you know Julia Davis’s work then you know that you either love it, are baffled by it, or quite possibly deeply repulsed. Sky Atlantic/HBO’s Sally4Ever is the darkest of her programmes that I’ve seen. The story of Davis’s manipulative sociopath Emma and her reluctant partner Sally, is so excruciating that you will spend large… Read More
War is horrific, but hard to make shocking on a small screen these days. Yet the random and rapid loss of life in World of Fire, the BBC’s hyped primetime WW2 drama, still jolts. Writer Peter Bowker (Blackpool) focuses on life in Warsaw, Berlin and Paris in the first years of the war. Three A-listers… Read More
I’ve just binge watched the show that everyone’s talking about (but apparently almost noone is watching). It’s Arrested Development meets Billions, written by Jesse “Peep Show” Armstrong. An ageing Murdoch-style media mogul patriarch and his horrendous extended family of misfits jostle for position and shaft each other regularly. The storylines are simplistic, but Succession is… Read More
Clever BBC police drama in the vein of Bodyguard/Line of Duty (though with no connection to either). Much smarter than Bodyguard, less procedural than LoD, but didn’t get the publicity of either. Asks challenging relevant ethical questions about truth, evidence and the greater good and, at just six episodes, it’s tightly plotted. Hope there’s a… Read More