It’s hard to fathom why Zeng Fanzhi is hailed as one of China’s superstar artists when you see his enormous paintings at Gagosian’s Britannia Street gallery (until Jan 19). Nine may be a lucky number, but it leaves the walls looking quite bare in what is one of his first showings in the West. True,…
There’s a reason you have never seen a production of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. It’s not his best play. It’s not even his, or rather, his alone, but probably a collaboration with Thomas Middleton. An awkward work that falls between tragedy and fable, it’s not surprising that it is seldom seen: huge cast, lots of…
South African artist William Kentridge is featured in a touring show from the Hayward Gallery, which travels across the UK but also in what seems to me the first really successful use of the circular walls of the Tate Modern’s Tanks: I am not Me, the Horse is not Mine (until 20 Jan). In Kentridge’s…
Leo Tolstoy famously said, in the opening lines of his novel Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” That may not be quite true, seeing people laugh with a sense of recognition at the play The Last of the Haussmans. No-one’s family can be quite like…
Curious, isn’t it, that we can understand how a blue sky can make one happy, but find it more difficult to see why five red cars could give one a super good day? For Christopher Boone though, while red cars are good, a yellow car heralds all the gloom of a dark storm cloud. Describing…
Tate Britain promises a radical new interpretation of the Pre-Raphaelites with their exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde (until 13 Jan), but judging by the throngs of viewers no such review is needed. The public obviously adores them anyway, but I have to admit to being one of the cynics who finds them often little more than…
At the time of the National Gallery’s blockbuster Leonardo exhibition I remember thinking how I’d love to see more of the Queen’s collection of his drawings, not knowing I’d have that pleasure so soon. His anatomical drawings wouldn’t have been my first choice, but Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist, at the Queen’s Gallery until 7 October,…
Every great city has its own river, and wars are fought and lost around them. London has the Thames, and from the time the Romans forded it, it has been pivotal to the city’s history. Historian David Starkey has taken the river’s royal connections and woven a fascinating tale of how this stretch of water…
On the Olympic site, South African Neville Gabie has been making his presence felt as the official Olympic artist in residence. Gabie, who studied in London, produced a variety of artworks and projects during his 15-month residency, responding to the physical changes of the site and the huge range of jobs, skills and personalities that have delivered…
Can Themba’s achingly sad South African fable, The Suit, is performed at the Young Vic until mid-June in a production directed by the legendary Peter Brook. It forms part of a unique collaboration of eight top London venues and international producers to showcase the different cultural communities in London. Themba’s short story, adapted for…
London Letter 