ART: Glenn Ligon, Encounters and Collisions, Nottingham
“There are some amazing pieces in here; it’s a very unusual thing when you’re getting someone like Kara Walker alongside the Black Panther party”
Francesca Gavin, visual arts editor at Dazed & ConfusedUS artist Glenn Ligon’s works hang in some very exclusive addresses in his home nation (including that of Barack Obama, to name just one) but his exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary in the UK is an all-inclusive affair. The event is a curated collection of both Ligon’s and other iconic artists’ works – such as those of Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock – in order to tell the story of contemporary America amid themes such as race and equal rights. That journey hasn’t yet finished and is a story of many voices but Ligon’s deft selection of the loudest and most original so far give reason to be optimistic about the future.
Listen now to this week’s art picks on The Monocle Arts Review
MUSIC: Tatsumi, “Mystery Hip-Hop”
“He’s a fully spiritual priest but hip-hop is part of his life and the two things don’t collide – it just works really beautifully”
Nick Luscombe, broadcaster and music specialistMonocle contributor Nick Luscombe’s eye for far-out sounds has taken him to Japan recently where he’s been digging through the nations’s fertile and unconventional hip-hop scene. One of Nick’s favourites from that recent trip is Buddhist priest Tatsumi, whose instrumental beats sit alongside other innovators on Nick’s radar such as Shinakosei and Cuushe.
Listen now to this week’s music picks on The Monocle Arts Review
FILM: The Good Lie
“It is moving and it actually says something about human society and what humans need – it’s also very funny”
Karen Krizanovich, film criticFrench director Philippe Falardeau’s film The Good Lie tells the story of three Sudanese migrants escaping their war-torn home country for a new life in the US. Reese Witherspoon plays an overworked employment counsellor opposite Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany and Emmanuel Jal, whose characters must adapt to the US’s unfamiliar ways in this warm drama that also ensures that the audience realises that the latter country is a far from perfect place to escape to.
Listen now to this week’s film picks on The Monocle Arts Review
THEATRE: An American in Paris, New York
“When it was over, there was a spontaneous roar of approval from the audience like I’ve rarely heard”
Matt Wolf, theatre critic at the ‘International New York Times’Directed by choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris at Broadway’s Palace Theater in New York is a tour de force for lovers of dance and those looking for some good old-fashioned escapism reinterpreted through some breathtakingly beautiful staging. This is an adaptation of the classic Hollywood musical made famous by iconic actor Gene Kelly so surprises are few but satisfying nostalgia is delivered in bulk by charismatic leads Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope.
Listen now to this week’s theatre picks on The Monocle Arts Review
BOOK: The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
“A very beautiful, very gentle, relaxed and rather lyrical novel”
Cathy Rentzenbrink, author and associate editor of ‘The Bookseller’The Gracekeepers is an imaginative new story from the pen of British author Kirsty Logan (pictured above). It’s a fantasy the describes the life of North and her bear, who live in a travelling floating circus and encounter adventures while bringing the circus to the last few outcrops of land left in a flooded world. Readers might think that it’s a work of unhinged fiction but if global warming has its way then we might all be living in Logan’s imagination sooner than we think.
Listen now to this week’s literary picks on The Monocle Arts Review
