It was good to hear pioneering campaigner for equal recognition of disabled actors Mat Fraser on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row the other evening. As someone who was born with arms stunted in the womb by the effects of the infamous morning-sickness drug Thalidomide, Mat knows what he’s talking about. Continue reading ““If a baby born to be King was like me, they’d kill him and get another one””
Tag: London
Anthony Caro (1924 – 2013) the man who perfected the art of taking art off its pedestal
Words: Jeremy Miles – Picture: Hattie Miles (Paris 2007)
He was the king of heavy metal – an apparent magician who could imbue sheets of steel and iron girders with a kind of weightless majesty. Sir Anthony Caro, who has died at the aged of 89, was a sculptor who could do amazing things with solidity. A few years ago he produced an astonishing entrance piece to a show at London’s Tate Britain exploring his 50 plus year career. Millbank Steps was a gargantuan piece designed to explore the relationship between sculpture and architecture. Weighing nearly 100 tons, the walk-through work filled more than half of the Tate’s vast Duveen Galleries. The floors had to be reinforced before it was craned in piece by piece.
Red Ken: green fingers and a curious wariness of the indestructibility of cheese
I can exclusively reveal that former London Mayor Ken Livingstone has something of a problem with cheese. Indeed the one-time fervent left-wing leader of the Greater London Council and controversial Labour MP won’t touch the stuff. Which is odd because back in the 1980s he used to advertise Red Leicester on the telly. Neat one eh? Red Ken loves a spot of Red Leicester!
Not anymore though and it’s all to do with composting, as he explained to me when I visited his North London home to talk to about his passion for gardening. As we sat in the Cricklewood sunshine discussing the contents of his three magnificent compost bins, Ken told me: “They say you shouldn’t put cooked food on a compost heap but that’s nonsense. I put everything in my compost including the remains of yesterday’s dinner. The worms, woodlice, bacteria and fungi will break everything down. Everything that is except cheese.”
Continue reading “Red Ken: green fingers and a curious wariness of the indestructibility of cheese”
New Edouard Manet show reveals insights into his portraiture and the world of 19th century Paris
A unique insight into the work of one of the most radical painters of the 19th century and the creative circles of Parisian society in which he moved is offered in Manet: Portraying Life, the first major UK exhibition to showcase Edouard Manet’s portraiture.
The National Gallery of Art, Washington.
The show, which highlights Manet’s portraiture, opens at London’s Royal Academy of Arts on Saturday (Jan 26. It examines the relationship between his portrait painting and his scenes of modern life and is already set to break records. By casting his sitters as actors in his genre scenes, Manet guaranteed the authenticity of the figures that populate his paintings and asserted a new, more potent relationship between Realism and Modernity.
Manet: Portraying Life includes over 50 paintings spanning the career of this archetypal modern artist together with a selection of pastels and contemporary photographs. It brings together works from both public and private collections across Europe, Asia and the USA.