Review: Selfie to Self Expression

The current major show at the Saatchi Gallery, From Selfie to Self-Expression, is an interesting one: it explores the selfie, and self-portraiture, from art history to today. In other words, the Gallery have hit upon a topic that virtually everyone will have a strong opinion on, which, by contrast, makes it quite difficult to review thoughtfully.

The Gallery say:

Saatchi Gallery and Huawei have teamed up to present From Selfie to Self-Expression. This is the world’s first exhibition exploring the history of the selfie from the old masters to the present day, and celebrates the truly creative potential of a form of expression often derided for its inanity.

The show also highlights the emerging role of the mobile phone as an artistic medium for self-expression by commissioning ten exciting young British photographers to create new works using Huawei’s newest breakthrough dual lens smartphones co-engineered with Leica. 

When I left this exhibition, I wasn't sure whether I'd witnessed a playful, clever review of the state of modern image production, or whether I was witnessing a manifestation of the end of days. I'm still not sure.
It is clear that a lot of thought has gone into the installations, and that everything included is there to spark some serious debate. Whatever your opinion of selfie culture, however, the curator has done a very good job of drawing parallels with portraiture from art history, so the exhibition isn't a study in isolated tackiness.
There's a mix of photography from established artists, large scale installation work, and, of course, both researched and crowd-sourced selfies. As a whole show it has a good balance to it, and explores the idea of self-expression in a surprising amount of intellectual depth for a show with 'selfie' in the title.
Overall, I think that Selfie to Self-Expression is worth seeing so you can wrap your own opinions around it. The issues it deals with are too contentious for any one reviewer to offer a definitive statement on, so I'm not going to try to. I still don't know if I loved or hated it, but I definitely engaged with it. It is worth your time, if only to give you something to argue over.

4/5: Irresistible debate-fodder
Saatchi Gallery
Until 6th September

Reviewing: The Ferryman

Jez Butterworth's most recent work, The Ferryman, became the fastest selling play in the Royal Court's history. His past success, and the renown of director Sam Mendes, meant that expectations were always going to be sky-high: the question is, does it live up to the hype?
The Royal Court tells us,

"Vanishing. It’s a powerful word, that. A powerful word.”
Northern Ireland, 1981. The Carney farmhouse is a hive of activity with preparations for the annual harvest.  A day of hard work on the land and a traditional night of feasting and celebrations lie ahead. But this year they will be interrupted by a visitor.

Now, in terms of plot, The Ferryman covers so much ground it's a miracle that it isn't a complete mess: instead, it's a stunning meeting of a stellar cast, a talented writer and a brilliant director, resulting in an incredible play.

All of the big themes are dealt with: love, loss, family, conflict, but they are woven together in a way that doesn't make the show seem overcrowded; Butterworth seems to have worked magic with his storytelling. The Carney family, headed by Paddy Considine's Quinn, are a vibrant, complex group of characters, each sympathetic in his or her own way, and watching them is a joy.

The naturalism of the Carney's kitchen at harvest offers insight into a world that is very similar to our own, but far enough away in time to seem dream-like. The brutal reality of the Troubles cuts through the rural idyll of the farm, and if you have any knowledge of the period, you know that the story could have no simple resolution. Others have pointed out how quickly the 3.5 hours flies by, and that is down to how compelling this story is, and how well it's performed.

Sam Mendes' direction is marvellous, and Nick Powell's music and sound design are subtle and create a sense of longing for a simpler time. Simply put, everything in this show works.

If you can get tickets for it, you really should. The Ferryman is unquestionably one of the best shows of the year.

5/5: Theatrical magic
Gielgud Theatre
Until January 2018

Review: Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour

Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour began life at the National Theatre, and is currently enjoying a West End transfer. Its life as a production has been very successful, but not entirely without controversy.
The NT describe it thusly:

From the creator of Billy Elliot (Lee Hall) comes the uplifting and moving story of six Catholic choir girls from Oban, let loose in Edinburgh for one day only.
Funny, heartbreaking and raucously rude, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour is adapted from Alan Warner’s brilliant novel about six young friends on the cusp of change and is directed by Royal Court Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone.
Featuring the songs of ELO, Our Ladies is a glorious anthem to friendship, youth and growing up disgracefully.
Prepare thyself for… really rude language, flashing lights, pyrotechnics, lots of sexual references, excessive drinking, and extensive use of the smoke machine.

A lot of people seem to have struggled getting beyond the lewdness on Our Ladies, but if all you do is get hung up about the swearing you have really missed the point.

The stories of the six schoolgirls, on their trip to Edinburgh, are poignant, and even though the characters are lairy, the way their story develops is really touching. If you walk out before the end, then you don't reach the points of resolution and the 'morning after' clarity of the play. And that would be your loss.

Of course, you can't review Our Ladies without discussing the music. The performances of both the actors and the band are phenomenal. Really, the singing is just incredible. I left the theatre uplifted: it it a thing of joy. I've never encountered a show that blends traditional choral pieces with ELO before... and probably never will again. The juxtaposition of the two means that when the choral music cuts through the rock, it is simply stunning.

I absolutely recommend Our Ladies, but if you're prudish about swearing, sex, or wild drunkenness, it's probably not the play for you.

4/5: Proud, loud, funny, but touching
Duke of York's Theatre
Until September

Review: Hir

Hir hadn't even been on my radar when a friend asked if I wanted to go and see it, so I agreed and it became one of the three productions I scheduled for this week.
So what is it?
The Bush Theatre say:

Isaac (Arthur Darvill) gets home from serving in the marines to find war has broken out back home. In a nondescript town somewhere in Central Valley – America, Isaac’s mom Paige (Ashley McGuire) is blowing up entrenched routines.
Fed up with domestic patriarchy, Paige has stopped washing, cleaning and caring for their ailing father, who recently suffered a stroke. She reigns supreme.
Ally to their mother’s new regime is Isaac’s sibling Max (Griffyn Gilligan). Only last time Isaac checked, Max was Maxine. Once the breadwinner, Isaac’s dad (Andy Williams) has toppled from the head of the household to the bottom of the pile – a make-upped puppet emasculated by Paige once and for all.
In a cheap house made of plywood and glue, notions of masculinity and femininity become weapons with which to defeat the old order. But in Taylor Mac’s sly, subversive comedy, annihilating the past doesn’t always free you from it.

Now, it's taken me about 24 hours to process exactly what I thought of Hir, and the conclusion I reached is that, whilst there are positives, the show as a whole is a bit of a mess.

The acting itself solid. No complaints there. All four members of the cast turn in decent performances. And the staging works well: the clear messy/anarchic and clean/ordered split between the two halves does what it needs to.

However, the script tries to cram in way too much. There are Important Themes flying about all over the place, meaning that none of them are properly dealt with. The trauma of a soldier returning from a war zone, a young person establishing hir gender identity, living with serious illness, and domestic abuse are all major issues that suffer for being rammed into a short play. Nothing is fully explored. Another huge detraction is the fact that the mental/physical health of the characters is often treated, at best, lightly or, at worst, as a joke: that did not sit well.

Hir could have been an amazing bit of theatre. Instead, a waspish script is held together by some sound acting. It isn't a write-off, but your time could be better spent elsewhere.

3/5: Solid performances despite a plotting mess
Bush Theatre
Until July 22

Reviewing: Giacometti

This is the second Giacometti exhibition in London of late - the NPG's 'Pure Presence' show fell in the 2015/16 season and was very well received - so there is clearly an appetite for his work in the capital.
Of this exhibition, the Tate Modern say:

Celebrated as a sculptor, painter and draughtsman, Giacometti’s distinctive elongated figures are some of the most instantly recognisable works of modern art. This exhibition reasserts Giacometti’s place alongside the likes of Matisse, Picasso and Degas as one of the great painter-sculptors of the twentieth century. Through unparalleled access to the extraordinary collection and archive of the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris, Tate Modern’s ambitious and wide-ranging exhibition brings together over 250 works. It includes rarely seen plasters and drawings which have never been exhibited before and showcases the full evolution of Giacometti’s career across five decades, from early works such as Head of a Woman [Flora Mayo] 1926 to iconic bronze sculptures such as Walking Man I 1960.

As the description explains, this exhibition works in broader strokes than the showing at the NPG, and as such gives a much more well-rounded view of the artist. You get to see his sketches, paintings and, of course, his sculpture.

His sketches and paintings are beguiling and complex, holding your attention as you try and figure out exactly what is being said, but, for me, it is the sculptural work where Giacometti's magic is most evident. He completed pieces on a tiny scale, whilst also producing huge works that tower over the spectator. His unique visual signature is said to explore the figure in the post-war era, everything irrelevant stripped away, but whatever is going on, the nature of his work is just mesmerising.

It is the first time a London audience has had the opportunity to see so much of Giacometti's work in one place, and it really gives you the opportunity to see his style and thinking evolve over time. The final encounter with his huge figurative work sends you out of the exhibition with a sense of his phenomenal talent and huge influence on the art world.

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole exhibition, and definitely recommend it. It is very rare for you to get such a detailed insight into a true master.

4/5: A powerful exploration of a life in art
Tate Modern
Until 10th September

Reviewing: Ink

This week involved a jaunt to Angel to see Ink at the Almeida. A piece of new writing, looking at the re-forming of The Sun newspaper into the brash, loud format we know today, Ink is dark, funny, and a masterclass in the creative rewriting of politics.

The Almeida say:

Fleet Street. 1969. The Sun rises.

James Graham’s ruthless, red-topped new play leads with the birth of this country’s most influential newspaper – when a young and rebellious Rupert Murdoch asked the impossible and launched its first editor’s quest, against all odds, to give the people what they want.

I say: Go and see it.

James Graham's writing, Rupert Goold's direction, and a fabulous cast make this play unmissable, as far as I'm concerned. The set and sound design are also a delight. In fact, I left the theatre beaming.

Ink explores the ideas of 'news' and journalistic ethics through the story of The Sun's first editor Larry Lamb (Richard Coyle), and his moral testing at the the hands of Rupert Murdoch (Bertie Carvel). The dialogue between the two men is rapid-fire, sweary, and sharp, and the performances of Carvel and Coyle are perfectly balanced.

The makeshift look of the set creates a strange sympathy for the team behind The Sun, which is quite an achievement, given that I, and probably most of the audience, fall distinctly within The Guardian's natural readership. The situating of the newspaper's first staff as underdogs is a clever way into making you rethink an institution that irrevocably changed the landscape of British journalism, and not for the better. Graham's script is brilliantly challenging in this respect - it allows you to take nothing for granted.

I loved Ink enough to be trying to make time to see it again, and that rarely happens. If you can get to it, you really should.

5/5: Brash, painfully funny, and terribly relevant
The Almeida
Until 5th August

Reviewing: Fahrelnissa Zeid

This week I took in a double bill of Tate Modern shows: Giacometti and Fahrelnissa Zeid. Of the two, Zeid's work was the most surprising, as she was a completely new artist to me - I got a ticket for her show on a whim when I went to see Giacomettii - but she proved to be a marvellous discovery.
Of Zeid, the Tate Modern say:

Trained in both Paris and Istanbul, Fahrelnissa Zeid was an important figure in the Turkish avant-garde d Group in the early 1940s and the École de Paris (School of Paris) in the 1950s. Her vibrant abstract paintings are a synthesis of Islamic, Byzantine, Arab and Persian influences fused with European approaches to abstraction. Many of her abstract works are monumental and demand attention.
Zeid’s reputation as an artist was cemented in the 1950s when she was living between London and Paris and exhibiting extensively internationally. The artist also began experimenting with painting on turkey and chicken bones, which she later cast in polyester resin panels evocative of stained-glass windows. In the later years of her life she unexpectedly returned to figurative painting, creating stylised portraits of her friends and family.
Indulge in Zeid’s obsession with line and dazzling colour in this exhibition. Rediscover one of the greatest female artists of the 20th century in this first major retrospective.​

Internationally trained and widely recognised in her contemporary moment, Zeid has since - as the exhibition points out - fallen from view. I, for one, am glad the Tate Modern has decided to take steps to bring her work out of obscurity, as I was stunned by the power of her painting, and want to see more of her.

Aside from exploring her fascinating life story,  the show charts her artistic development and showcases the raw emotion and scale of her work. Though there are some smaller works, a lot of what she paints is dramatic in size, and her use of colour, line, and pattern is nothing short of striking.

The huge abstract canvases draw you in, and it feels like there is something recognisable hidden in the patterns, if only you could stare at them for long enough. Her portraiture does nothing for me, but her use of colour across everything in the show is pure magic.

Overall, Zeid's retrospective is well worth catching.

4/5:Vibrant and hypnotic
Tate Modern
Until 8th October