Freire Barnes is Time Out's former London Deputy Visual Arts Editor.

Freire Barnes

Freire Barnes

Articles (20)

Thomas Struth Interview

Thomas Struth Interview

A former student of Bernd and Hilla Becher and Gerhard Richter, Thomas Struth made a name for himself with his black-and-white photographs of empty streets in Düsseldorf and large-scale images of museum-goers gawping at exhibits. Now in his early sixties, Struth continues to engage in the act of looking with his latest photos of locations in Israel, which are predominantly deserted yet filled with allegorical connotations. How would you describe your work to someone who hadn’t seen it?‘That happens fairly often. Say when I’m on a plane, people will ask me what I do and I say, “I’m an artist.” Then they say, “Ah, do you paint or make sculpture?” and I say, “No, I make photographs.” And they say, “Ah, you’re a photographer, what do you photograph?” Then I say, “I make family portraits, I work a lot with architecture and I’ve photographed in the jungle.” And then they say, “So which magazine do you work for?” It’s very difficult. So I would say the bottom line is, I’m a picture-maker and I do photography because the historical time when you would have painted what I photograph is over. It’s absurd; I would need five lifetimes to paint what I photograph, so I use the camera to make pictures.’ This show brings together two different bodies of work: images of the West Bank and a series on technology research in California. What did you want achieve with this pairing? ‘Most of the images are very unheroic. There are a lot of shots that are dire, unordinary and modest. I always want
Tony Oursler interview: 'Art for me is about getting out of myself and exploring'

Tony Oursler interview: 'Art for me is about getting out of myself and exploring'

Tony Oursler has been creating disconcerting talking heads for decades – you may have seen his work without realising it in the video for David Bowie’s ‘Where Are We Now?’ in 2013. We caught up with the American artist at his first London show in five years to talk about how facial recognition technology has inspired his latest work. How did you start working with facial recognition technology?‘I’ve always been fascinated with how technology extends our psychological space. So when I discovered this kind of facial recognition, realising the machines we made are “reading” us, it just seemed a natural progression.’ Is this the same technology used by the authorities to keep an eye on us?‘All the works represent various algorithmic interpretations of the face, which started with the police but now filters into advertising and sales. Of course London is no stranger to this, it had the first camera surveillance system, way ahead of other places.’The work incorporates various media, including video. Do all the sculptures talk?‘Some talk, some are silent, some have holes where eyes or mouths should be and some do not. So they are a mixed bag.’ They feel like individual characters. Are you trying to give personality to a mass analysing system?‘Absolutely, each one could be a different personality or a different mindset. I was surprised about the way the characters developed. I thought originally they would be much more like science fiction.’ The sculptures are very theatrical.‘I want
11 photos of Kate Moss chosen by Kate Moss

11 photos of Kate Moss chosen by Kate Moss

Our favourite Croydon girl is the ultimate twenty-first-century muse. Having spent the majority of her life in front of the camera, she’s selected her favourite snaps by photographic greats including Juergen Teller, Annie Leibovitz and Bruce Weber for an exclusive portfolio as part of ‘The Photographers’ exhibition showing concurrently at Osborne Samuel and Beetles & Huxley. You can see these shots along with over 150 other evocative photos tracing photography’s history and featuring works by David Bailey and Richard Avedon. ‘The Photographers’ exhibition runs November 25–December 23. Looking for more photo fixes? Check out the top ten photography exhibitions on at the moment or venture to some of the top photography galleries in London.
Anj Smith's new art show: 'I hadn’t realised how labyrinthine sexuality is'

Anj Smith's new art show: 'I hadn’t realised how labyrinthine sexuality is'

This show has been three years in the making. How long do you spend on one painting?‘It’s really hard to quantify how long a painting takes. I work in series now as I find it helps me think on different subjects as I can become too obsessive. Sometimes it can take a month and other times longer, like two works in the show, which took three years.’ Animals are a constant in your work.‘Actually this show is quite monkey heavy.’ Why is that?‘I’m not sure I can fully articulate why I’m fascinated by monkeys. They are so “other” but they are also really human. In the work they represent our creature reality, I love that phrase, our “animal nature or our “animalness”.’ Although the paintings are exceptionally contemporary there is traditionalism to the format of portraits, landscapes, and still lifes as well as a hint of northern renaissance otherworldliness. Are you a fan of Hieronymus Bosch?‘I love Bosch. I do see elements of still life, portraiture and landscape in all of the works but I come from the approach that genre is very fluid and can be collapsed at will. Each painting escapes easy categorisation, so a portrait isn’t straightforward portraiture, there are elements of a state of mind I’ve experienced. I also consider the paintings where a figure isn’t present to be portraits, but portraits of a psychology, a neurosis, or our desires. One of the joys of painting is that you can reference all of these art historical riches but you can interpret them in a contemporary cont
Patrick Staff Interview: ‘I was too angry, emotional and queer  to do anything other than art’

Patrick Staff Interview: ‘I was too angry, emotional and queer to do anything other than art’

Artists these days don’t confine themselves to toiling in draughty studios. They collaborate, get out there. Really out there, in the case of rising star Patrick Staff. Working across film, installation, performance and publishing, and alongside other artists, historians and dancers, the 27-year-old has made a name for himself with massively ambitious works that look at how counter-cultures and alternative communities exist within the mainstream. For his biggest show to date, Staff ensconced himself within the close-knit gay community at the Tom of Finland Foundation in LA, an archive devoted to the work and legacy of the legendary homoerotic artist. It considers Tom’s influence on subsequent generations of gay men, how legends are created and their heritage curated. How did you come to make a film at the Tom of Finland Foundation?‘It all came about because I was in LA for an exhibition in 2012. I was intrigued. What struck me most was how the foundation is basically a big commune. It’s a normal house on a suburban street. When I first visited there were two guys in full leather smoking on the porch and a guy came out in a boiler suit, undone down to his stomach. He was clearly naked underneath and he just said, “Hey, come in. You want to look at the archive, why sure. Do you want a cigarette? Cup of tea? Let’s hang out.” From that moment on I was in that world.’ So is the film a homage to Tom and his disciples?‘Tom’s not that present in the work. He’s referred to a lot, like
Ten photos of London's nightlife by Derek Ridgers

Ten photos of London's nightlife by Derek Ridgers

'I only ever went to those clubs that I knew attracted the sort of clientele that would want to be photographed. The peacocks and the show-offs and the kind of people that I could never have been myself (but might secretly have always wanted to be)' Derek Ridgers. London has always been a party capital long before the 24-hour drinking law was ever dreamed up. For the past 40 years, British photographer Derek Ridgers has been at the forefront of the city's club scene, capturing the goings-on of our most exuberant night owls from punks, new romantics and goths to fetishists, disco queens and rockers. For his forthcoming book, 'The Dark Carnival: Portrait from the Endless Night', Ridgers has gone back over his extensive archive to collate a unique collection of portraits of London’s ever-changing and diverse subcultures. Here, Ridgers and those who were lucky enough to make the cut, give us the backstory to these fascinating photographs. 'The Dark Carnival: Portrait from the Endless Night' by Derek Ridgers is available from November, £29.95 and is published by Carpet Bombing Culture.
Susan Hiller Interview

Susan Hiller Interview

The show is an overview of your career but it shouldn’t be referred to as a retrospective?‘It’s not a retrospective. There is a difference to being retrospective and looking back and a retrospective, which traditionally takes a form of chronological presentation of work to show development or lack of it. The reason I don’t think of it as a retrospective is things have been juxtaposed for reasons other than chronology.’   'It means the obsession is growing' You originally studied anthropology. How and why did you become an artist?‘I always wanted to be an artist, but by the time I was a teenager I became aware there were no women artists: none. Later, when I discovered some, they were always denigrated:“She’s the wife of so and so”. So unconsciously I was separated from my ambition to be an artist. At secondary school I found a little booklet called “Anthropology as a career for women” by Margaret Mead. Honestly no one had ever expressed anything interesting as a career to me as a woman. You could be a secretary, a teacher but an anthropologist? I didn’t even know what that was, it was so exotic and interesting. Then I went to a very prestigious and academic New England women’s college. They didn’t teach anthropology, but they had a very good art department. American universities don’t produce specialists, so I took a variety of subjects. I got out of college with this very broad background and no sense of vocation, so I went to New York for a year and took courses in life dr
Jarman Award 2015

Jarman Award 2015

The legacy of one of Britian’s most influential and critically important video artists, Derek Jarman lives on in the annual £10,000 moving image prize. Freire Barnes delves into this year's shortlisted arty flicks.
Eight photos of east London pubs by Jan Klos

Eight photos of east London pubs by Jan Klos

What would London be without its beloved boozers? They're the places you can call a home from home, where you can meet friends, take the stress of the day away and revel into the early hours. Photographer Jan Klos has spent the last year capturing the people who make east London’s pubs so special. Inspired by the traditional family portrait, Klos’s photographs celebrate pub ‘families’ who in the face of challenging times strive to stay open. Some have even closed since he took the photos, making this a poignant tribute. Here we talk to Jan and the bar men and women about these unique east London watering holes. ‘The Photographic Guide to the Pubs of East London’ is at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, 42-46 Pollard Row, E2 6NB. Oct 7 to Oct 14.
Abraham Cruzvillegas tells us about his Tate Modern Hyundai Commission in the Turbine Hall

Abraham Cruzvillegas tells us about his Tate Modern Hyundai Commission in the Turbine Hall

Since opening in 2000, Tate Modern has showcased some of the most monumental site-specific exhibits in the world in its Turbine Hall. At 152 metres long, the space – which once housed the massive electricity generators of the old power station – gives artists the opportunity to go beyond their comfort zone and present Londoners with something truly spectacular. Olafur Elíasson brightened up our grey days with his giant sun for ‘The Weather Project’ in 2003. We were reminded that art could be fun with Carsten Höller’s slides for ‘Test Site’ in 2006. Now with a new sponsor, Hyundai, the first in a new series of Turbine Hall commissions launches with ‘Empty Lot’ by 47-year-old Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas. On a raised scaffolding platform that extends from the Turbine Hall bridge towards either end of the space, Cruzvillegas has filled 240 wooden planters with over 23 tonnes of soil from open spaces in London including Acton Park, Brockwell Park, Clapham Common, Greenwich Park and Hackney Marshes. These beds of earth lie dormant, but Cruzvillegas has constructed lampposts from material found in and around the Tate to light them. The idea is that we wait in anticipation of what, if anything, might sprout from them over the next six months. The Turbine Hall becomes ripe with possibility. So what can we expect? Why did you use soil from all over London?‘It speaks about identity and how different we are in the same place. I think we have about 35 different types of soil from
Judy Chicago Interview

Judy Chicago Interview

One of America’s most important, prolific and pioneering artists, Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen) is as charismatically outspoken now as she was in the 1960s. And, at 75, she’s finally receiving the acclaim and attention that eluded her for the majority of her career. She tells us about her show at Riflemaker, her inclusion in ‘The World Goes Pop’ at Tate Modern that will feature her famous spray-painted car bonnets, what it means to be a woman artist and why she changed her name. How would you describe what you do to someone who’s never seen your work?‘I think that’s a very difficult thing to do. I would probably suggest they Google me to be able to see my work – there is tons of stuff online!’  You’re often referred to as an ‘activist artist’ or ‘feminist artist’: do you think of yourself in that way?‘I think of myself as an artist who has tried to make a contribution to art history: who has tried to counter and overcome the erasure of women artists in history. I’m an artist who cares passionately about meaning in art, who has pursued paths of interest whether they were fashionable, popular, commercially successful or not.’  Some of the works in your Riflemaker show are seminal…‘I wish we could come up with another term, as “seminal” seems so inappropriate for women, you know what I mean?’   Okay, how about important or critical works?‘The work in the show come from the first two decades of my career, which is important because for a very long time people tended to

Listings and reviews (12)

Nutcracker

Nutcracker

3 out of 5 stars
The Nutcracker is on at the Coliseum for Christmas 2018. This review is from the 2014 run. ‘The Nutcracker’ is like coming home to an open fire; it’s comforting and warming and just what’s needed on a cold winter’s night. It’s like an old friend – certainly English National Ballet’s storied production relies on avid fans returning year on year for the quintessential festive ballet. As snow falls and skaters glide across the stage, ETA Hoffman’s fanciful story begins. Choreographed by Wayne Eagling back in 2010, the lavish opening party scene is full of the gaiety of youth and as girls skip about, you’ll let out a chuckle as the grandmother and grandfather attempt to dance as they once did, especially when grandma almost tumbles and grandpa pokes her with his cane.But it’s when everyone’s gone to bed and the magician Drosselmeyer’s spells take effect that Tchaikovsky’s ballet takes fantastical flight. It becomes the terrain of Mouse Kings, toy soldiers, sugar plum fairies and it’s at this point you realise why every little girl wants to be Clara and every dancer wants to dance the role. But ENB’s well-worn ‘Nutcracker’ is not quite the stuff of dreams. It’s a little too dark in its enactment of the story and a little too stiff in its stage sets and clunky scene changes. But there are glimmers of magnificence when Clara and the Nutcracker perform their impressive duets, when the Dragonfly flutters into motion and the Land of Sweets’ glistened gestures are precision perfect. Ult
Giacomo Manzù: Sculptor and Draughtsman

Giacomo Manzù: Sculptor and Draughtsman

Although largely self taught, Giacomo Manzù established himself as one Italy’s foremost sculptors of religious subjects. He won his first major ecclesiastical commission in 1930, decorating the chapel of the Catholic University in Milan. Later he would go on to sculpt the monumental bronze church doors for St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. This show co-organised with Bologna’s Galleria d’Arte Maggiore not only brings together important religious works including Manzù’s ‘Cardinals’ series but also focuses on his sensitive portraits of family members and sinuous sculptures of entwined lovers.
Jim Shaw

Jim Shaw

4 out of 5 stars
You don’t have to be an art history whiz or need to know the New Testament inside-out to get Jim Shaw’s culturally rich and brilliantly absurd paintings. However, it might help to do so, in order to really get the cutting wit of this Los Angeles-based artist. Shaw, who founded the band Destroy All Monsters with the late, great Mike Kelley, is best known for his extensive collection of junk shop paraphernalia. Here, he mines pop culture, historical injustices, our relationship to nature and religious fanaticism in his own intensely detailed and allegorical work. In 2004, Shaw started to collect theatrical scenery backdrops from the 1940s and ’50s. These are perfect ready-made canvases for his muralesque paintings. A myriad of deftly painted figures from the fables of our time –advertisements, comics and films – are cast in mythological and religious narratives. In ‘The Third Angel’, the happy, ho-ho-hoing giant of the American frozen veg brand, Green Giant has been fitted out with wings; with a cheeky smile, he pours gooey red liquid into a valley of corn. In case you’re not up on your bible references, this scenario is taken from the Book of Revelation, which Shaw uses to comment on the genetic modification of crops in America. In ‘Whore of Babylon & Robber Barons’, a belly dancing-whore holding a flame aloft like the Statue of Liberty rides a seven-headed beast of nineteenth-century top-hatted merchants. Shaw’s style is big, bold and compelling. He audaciously confronts home
Julia Margaret Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron

4 out of 5 stars
We take it for granted today but when photography was first invented, it must have been extraordinary to witness a moment in time captured forever as a static image. When you look at Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs from more than 150 years ago, you are reminded why photography was, and still is, so enchanting. Cameron received her first camera as a forty-eighth birthday present from her daughter in 1863 and quickly created an unprecedented number of images. To celebrate the bicentenary of Cameron’s birth two museum displays pay tribute to an experimental photographer whose innovative approach was artistically revered but also critically condemned due to her unorthodox methods. At the V&A, in a majestically crimson-painted gallery, the display focuses on Cameron’s relationship with the museum and its founding director Sir Henry Cole. It was he who gave Cameron her first show in 1865 at the V&A’s former incarnation, the South Kensington Museum. Sepia-tinged and often blurry, her photos retain the traces of the photographic process – smudges, scuffs and scratches due to the hazardous and sensitive chemicals used. They’re alluring and haunting. Apparitional portraits of friends and family are hung next to religious and allegorically-themed compositions, which feature one of Cameron’s recurring muses and models, her personal maid Mary Ann Hillier. Cameron cast the melancholic-looking Hillier as Shakespeare’s Juliet, as the Madonna, as St Agnes and as the Greek poet Sappho, am
Julia Margaret Cameron: Influence and Intimacy

Julia Margaret Cameron: Influence and Intimacy

4 out of 5 stars
We take it for granted today but when photography was first invented, it must have been extraordinary to witness a moment in time captured forever as a static image. When you look at Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs from more than 150 years ago, you are reminded why photography was, and still is, so enchanting. Cameron received her first camera as a forty-eighth birthday present from her daughter in 1863 and quickly created an unprecedented number of images. To celebrate the bicentenary of Cameron’s birth two museum displays pay tribute to an experimental photographer whose innovative approach was artistically revered but also critically condemned due to her unorthodox methods. At the V&A, in a majestically crimson-painted gallery, the display focuses on Cameron’s relationship with the museum and its founding director Sir Henry Cole. It was he who gave Cameron her first show in 1865 at the V&A’s former incarnation, the South Kensington Museum. Sepia-tinged and often blurry, her photos retain the traces of the photographic process – smudges, scuffs and scratches due to the hazardous and sensitive chemicals used. They’re alluring and haunting. Apparitional portraits of friends and family are hung next to religious and allegorically-themed compositions, which feature one of Cameron’s recurring muses and models, her personal maid Mary Ann Hillier. Cameron cast the melancholic-looking Hillier as Shakespeare’s Juliet, as the Madonna, as St Agnes and as the Greek poet Sappho, am
Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors

Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors

5 out of 5 stars
It may already have toured Europe and America, but Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s epic nine-screen video installation ‘The Visitors’ (2012) hasn’t lost any of its sentiment, charisma or potency for its UK premiere. Actually it’s the best presentation I’ve seen at Vinyl Factory’s space which, ingeniously, uses the top floor of Brewer Street car park for installation artworks. Known for performance-based, work for which he often collaborates with family and friends, Kjartansson has created a mesmerising experience. It’s set at the two-hundred-year-old Rokeby Villa in upstate New York (once home to the American socialite Astor family), where eight musicians perform a heart-wrenching song with spellbinding passion. Shot in one take, each performer, including members of bands Sigur Ros and Múm, inhabits a different room in the run-down house: one screen features Kjartansson strumming his guitar and belting out lyrics while naked in a bath. The ninth scenario focuses on the veranda where the villa’s residents occasionally join in aided by the hum of Hudson River crickets and unexpected cannon fire. The piece culminates with everyone making their way out on to the grand lawn and into the misty sun-setting distance, the sound of their chanting beautifully dissolving as they become specks on the screen. Using his ex-wife Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir’s short, profoundly  nihilistic poem about love and loss, ‘Feminine Ways’, as the inspiration for the verse , Kjartansson composed the
Susan Hiller

Susan Hiller

For her first exhibition at the gallery, the American artist who’s lived in London for the past 40 years will present a survey of works from her extensive six-decade career. Hiller has used a variety of media including automatic writing, eyewitness accounts and photographic aura portraits to explore unexplained phenomena and occult activities of our society. Exhibiting in both galleries, some early works not seen since the 70s will be displayed alongside her most recent work as well as three major installations including the campfire version of ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’ (1983–84) – the first video installation work bought by Tate. Here, Hiller’s anthropological eye investigates the unconscious and belief systems. READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN HILLER HERE
Nancy Holt: Locators

Nancy Holt: Locators

4 out of 5 stars
The late American artist Nancy Holt spent a lot of her time out in the deserts of North America. When she wasn’t making collaborative works with Land Art greats like Michael Heizer, Richard Serra and her husband, Robert Smithson, she was exploring Utah, New Mexico and Arizona for sites to locate her monumental sculptural installations. But some of her early experimentations happened in her New York studio.  Before her death in 2014, Holt conceived this show of her rarely seen ‘Locators’ series. The minimal-looking sculptures are made from vertical steel pipes with shorter tubes mounted on top, through which your gaze is directed on to a specific location. Holt liked how the locators could ‘zero in on things’. Here, with the ‘Locators’ positioned at eye level and at various angels, you’re invited to look on to black circles painted on the wall, a delineated architectural aspect of the gallery that you wouldn’t normally pay attention to or the pavement outside. Although your sight line is concentrated, Holt explores the parameters of perspective and the paradoxes of vision. This is experimental art that explores how perception is shaped – one ‘Locator’ even zeros in on a mirror, so you can look at yourself looking. Providing context are a number of Holt’s photographic works. There are views through sand dunes, ancient Mayan sites and concrete building bricks. ‘Sunlight in Sun Tunnels’ (1976) shows numerous views through one of Holt’s most famous works, ‘Sun Tunnels’ (1973-76),
Lee Miller: A Woman's War

Lee Miller: A Woman's War

5 out of 5 stars
It wasn’t until Lee Miller’s death in 1977 that her son Anthony Penrose discovered the role his mother had played in documenting World War II. Forgotten in the attic was Miller’s archive of negatives. A selection of her photographs exploring the role of women in the lead-up to, during and after World War II is exhibited in a remarkable display here. Don’t expect a dry history lesson. Miller was quite the character and a wilful woman who is the perfect visual storyteller of the period. Miller’s rise to accomplished photojournalist begins with a very personal introduction. Intimate holiday snaps with a European art-world set including the surrealists Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington are hung next to vibrant portraits of Miller by Picasso and the British surrealist Roland Penrose (whom she later married). Miller’s early career had been spent as a fashion model in New York, discovered by Condé Nast. You’ll see fashion images from the era juxtaposed with her first experiments of the photographic techniques. In 1929 she travelled to Paris with the aim of becoming an apprentice to the photographer and painter Man Ray. She became his lover and muse, as well as collaborator. But it wasn’t until the outbreak of World War II, when Miller was living with Penrose in Hampstead, that she could really put her talent to the test. British Vogue commissioned her to produce photo essays on the war effort like ‘Fashion for Factories’. Although informed by the newly created Ministry of Information
Ben Rivers: Earth Needs More Magicians

Ben Rivers: Earth Needs More Magicians

3 out of 5 stars
Daydreaming probably gets a lot of us through the day: thinking about what might have been, or what could be. I imagine British artist Ben Rivers as a daydreamer, someone who is in tune with his inner explorer. The four films included in his show all circumnavigate lands that don’t conform to the expected, where anything goes. In ‘Ah Liberty’, a remote rural vista pans across the wall, where a family of kids wearing hand-made masks muck about amid piles of broken vehicles. Left to their own devices they resemble the characters of William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’. The grainy sepia tone, the lack of restraint and the countryside marred by debris all add a sense of foreboding for this micro-community.   ‘There is a Happy Land Further Awaay [sic]’ plunges you into the misty jungle island of Tanna in the South Pacific, where, again, children play and a bubbling volcano spurts molten lava. A young woman’s voice reads out excerpts of a story about someone in a far-off country. The gallery walls are covered in corrugated metal, the hues of rusty terracotta and dusty grey mimicking the huts in the film. Again an overwhelming uneasiness looms, and it turns out the island was devastated by Cyclone Pam. Rivers encourages glimmers of nostalgia as his 16mm works flicker grittily in the galleries. His ode to the reclusive British painter Rose Wylie is beautifully mediated through two suspended projections that follow the shy-yet-charismatic artist as she paints, ponders life and feeds
Jumana Manna

Jumana Manna

4 out of 5 stars
Sitting through feature-length film works in a gallery can often be hard going. Luckily young Palestinian artist Jumana Manna’s new film ‘A magical substance flows into me’ is worth watching from beginning to end, even at 70 minutes long. Manna’s film is inspired by the research of German-Jewish ethnomusicologist, Robert Lachmann (who fled to Israel at the beginning of WWII). In it, she revisits the diaspora groups – Kurdish, Moroccan, Yemenite Jews, Samaritans, Palestinian communities, Bedouins and Coptic Christians – whose traditional music Lachmann studied and recorded for the 1930s radio series, Oriental Music.  The complex histories of Manna’s hometown, Jerusalem are pieced together. Shots of domestic spaces where men play instruments and talk about the importance of music  are interspersed with exterior shots of the locale from hustling daytime to peaceful dusk.  She includes her parents as well as herself to reflect a personal connection to the subject and even poses questions to friends, such as ‘Would your dad sing Kurdish songs in his police uniform?’ Intermittently she narrates text from Lachmann’s writings and discloses the integral element of music in different ceremonial customs such as weddings.  The film concludes in what looks like the building site of a house as three men create a rapturous song, so the beats of tradition boom around the space. As the credits come up suddenly there’s a shot of a Coptic bishop, featured earlier, who blesses Jumana and her tea
The World Goes Pop

The World Goes Pop

4 out of 5 stars
This show isn’t about the pop art you know, it’s about the pop art that escaped the history books. And it certainly packs a punch. It’s fun, engaging, colourful, revelatory, opinionated, racy and stunning. Most importantly the show illuminates how pop wasn’t confined to Andy Warhol’s Factory in New York or Richard Hamilton’s studio in London – it was a phenomenon that reached much further, practiced by artists in Peru, Israel, Argentina, Japan, Brazil and Eastern Europe. In an opening gallery painted scintillating red, the work quite literally pops off the walls. Here, traditional techniques are turned on their head, such as Japanese woodblock printing in Ushio Shinohara’s ‘Doll Festival’, (1966) which is reinvigorated with the use of industrial materials like Perspex. Moving on, you’ll find the mimicry of media and the language of mass production, the repetition of advertising strategies and consumerist logos, the appropriation of icons from popular culture, the re-evaluation of the role of women and the subversion of political symbolism. It makes for a riveting, eye-opening group exhibition that re-educates us on a movement that really reached out to embrace us – and continues to do so. The Brazilian military dictatorship of the 1960s is confronted in Marcello Nitsche’s giant flyswatter, ready and waiting to squish the tyrannical regime. Pop stars from western magazines are reimagined as the friends of Romanian artist Cornel Brudaşcu in his exquisite paintings. Basically ev

News (6)

Beyond Frieze: here are all the other art fairs happening in London this week

Beyond Frieze: here are all the other art fairs happening in London this week

There are more art fairs in London this week than just Frieze London and Frieze Masters. Here's our guide to an alternative #friezeweek. 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair <img id="e42e0f8b-0b02-6893-4660-d94acbe57f87" data-caption="" data-credit="© Mauro Pinto" data-width-class="" type="image/jpeg" total="468412" loaded="468412" image_id="102909973" src="http://media.timeout.com/images/102909973/image.jpg" class="photo lazy inline"> © Mauro Pinto Following its New York debut earlier this year, the contemporary African art fair returns for its third and biggest ever edition with work over 150 artists including Ibrahim El-Salahi, Otobong Nkanga, Aboudia and Meschac Gaba on display in the elegant surroundings of Somerset House.1:54, Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 1LA. £15, £7 concs, £30 four-day pass. Thu Oct 15 to Sun Oct 18.   Sunday <img id="687db5c5-9315-e666-dd4c-519a74cb0a2d" data-caption="" data-credit="© Sunday" data-width-class="" type="image/jpeg" total="381588" loaded="381588" image_id="102910008" src="http://media.timeout.com/images/102910008/image.jpg" class="photo lazy inline"> © Sunday Now in its sixth year, Sunday returns to Ambika P3’s subterranean space with a showcase of 25 international galleries who nurture the careers of young artists. New this year is an Editions section with works presented by regional institutions such as Spike Isl
Mapping the city: we took a ride in the car taking 650,000 pictures of London

Mapping the city: we took a ride in the car taking 650,000 pictures of London

Hyundai and the Ordnance Survey are on a mission to map London over 50 days through 650,000 street pictures. They’re doing this all from a hydrogen fuel cell car that emits nothing but water. We couldn’t pass up on the chance to go along for part of the 2,000-mile ride at the beginning of A Streetcar Named Hyundai’s journey.    <img id="407598d4-3e60-8af2-7f73-790b8e4d5a20" data-caption="" data-credit="© Ordinance Survey" data-width-class="" type="image/jpeg" total="555815" loaded="555815" image_id="102903436" src="http://media.timeout.com/images/102903436/image.jpg" class="photo lazy inline"> © Ordinance Survey    So with Hannah, our trusted driver, map at the ready and two high-tech whizzes in the back, we set off from Blackfriars to snap the streets. <img id="2f7d483a-64a5-be48-6a39-ecfb5d559836" data-caption="" data-credit="© Freire Barnes" data-width-class="" type="image/jpeg" total="633273" loaded="633273" image_id="102903427" src="http://media.timeout.com/images/102903427/image.jpg" class="photo lazy inline"> © Freire Barnes   We couldn’t have asked for a better day. With clear blue skies, the camera, which is installed on the roof and controlled by the car’s speed, took an image every 6-7 metres.  <img id="9b1ec2c7-0768-af78-bd3b-9a7adaadd048" data-caption="" data-credit="© A Streetcar Named Hyundai" data-width-class="" type="image/jpeg" total="413795" loaded="413795" imag
What not to miss at Frieze London and Frieze Masters

What not to miss at Frieze London and Frieze Masters

For the last 13 years, Frieze London has been the biggest contemporary carnival in London’s art calendar. It’s the place to see and be seen, taking in all that the international art word has to offer under one roof. Then four years ago it was joined by its sister fair, Frieze Masters that bridged the gap between ancient and mid-century, making the Frieze Fair phenomenon a force to be reckoned with. So with thousands of artworks to see, where do you start? Here are just a few of the exhibits that you don't want to miss. Get down like Beyoncé to Frieze Masters <img id="d4ba15c2-8256-89b9-4918-9846f4b70193" data-caption="Frieze Masters 2014: Helly Nahmad" data-credit="Photo: Stephen Wells, Courtesy Stephen Wells/Frieze." data-width-class="" type="image/jpeg" total="328276" loaded="328276" image_id="102908621" src="http://media.timeout.com/images/102908621/image.jpg" class="photo lazy inline"> Frieze Masters 2014: Helly NahmadPhoto: Stephen Wells, Courtesy Stephen Wells/Frieze. Last year, the stand-out booth of Frieze Masters came from Helly Nahmad who worked with a set designer to create a spectacular installation of a fictional collector's home. Ol' Beyoncé Instagramed her heart away at this exhibit and the gallery has promised something truly outstanding again this year, but what else can you expect? Lisson Gallery (E7) has dedicated their entire stand to the Cuban-born, New York-based artist Carmen Herrera in celebration of her 100th birthday. Richard Green (E2) will b
Tate Modern's Turbine Hall is full of London soil

Tate Modern's Turbine Hall is full of London soil

Today Tate Modern unveiled the inaugural Turbine Hall Hyundai Commission by Abraham Cruzvillegas, 'Empty Lot'. On a raised scaffolding platform that extends from the Turbine Hall bridge towards either end of the space, the Mexican artist has filled 240 wooden planters with over 23 tonnes of soil from open spaces in London including Acton Park, Brockwell Park, Clapham Common, Greenwich Park and Hackney Marshes. Giving artists the opportunity to go beyond their comfort zone and presenting us Londoners with something truly spectacular, the 152 metres long Turbine Hall has showcased some of the most monumental site-specific exhibits in the world, like Olafur Elíasson's ‘The Weather Project’ that brightened up our grey days and Carsten Höller’s ‘Test Site’ that reminded us art could be fun. With 'Empty Lot', London's biggest contemporary art space becomes ripe with possibility. Read our exclusive interview with Abraham Cruzvillegas about bringing hope, togetherness and tonnes of London mud to the monumental contemporary art space.    <img id="08c04b99-f541-7ef8-8da7-1acbb989f96c" data-caption="Abraham Cruzvillegas with his Turbine Hall Hyundai Commission at Tate Modern" data-credit="Photo: Rob Greig" data-width-class="" type="image/jpeg" total="507694" loaded="507694" image_id="102905774" src="http://media.timeout.com/images/102905774/image.jpg" class="photo lazy inline"> Abraham Cruzvillegas with his Turbine Hall Hyundai Commission at Tate ModernPhoto: Rob Greig  'Abraham
Gagosian is opening an impressive new gallery in Mayfair

Gagosian is opening an impressive new gallery in Mayfair

Above an NCP car park and in a former Savills office building, the art powerhouse Gagosian Gallery is set to open its new Mayfair outpost this October. The gallery had been looking for a space around there for the last ten years and finally settled on a 1960s building tucked behind the throng of Berkeley Square. ‘It’s a strange blind spot in Mayfair, many people don’t know it,’ said Stefan Ratibor, director of the gallery. ‘It will bring life to this area.’   <img id="aa193684-08e9-10d6-65af-88ebd9da1220" data-caption="© Gagosian Gallery" data-credit="" data-width-class="" type="image/jpeg" total="251215" loaded="251215" image_id="102876676" src="http://media.timeout.com/images/102876676/image.jpg" class="photo lazy inline"> © Gagosian Gallery Even though they’ve opted for a more traditional approach (don’t expect the Kunsthalle style of their Britannia Street gallery which has shown museum-scale exhibitions of Henry Moore and Richard Serra) the Mayfair gallery is still mega in scale (at 18,000 square feet) and style with a stunning bespoke European oak floor. Architects Caruso St John are also using all the latest in technological gadgetry; the lighting alone has taken two years to devise and is powered by a programme that tracks the outside weather to create a naturally lit environment inside. © Gagosian Gallery   So when can you get into to see this new beacon of gallery architecture? Well as is tradition, the gallery will be inaugurated with a show of the importa
Vote for the new arty face of the £20 note

Vote for the new arty face of the £20 note

Queenie might take precedence on our bank notes, but she’s about to get a new friend as the Bank of England for the first time ever, want us – yes, the voice of the nation – to nominate an historic figure from the visual arts for the new £20 banknote. This means that economist Adam Smith who’s graced the note since 2007 is gonna get the heave-ho, with an arts and crafty person taking his place come 2020. But fear not, the ugly mugs of Damien Hirst or Tracey Emin can’t be expected, as your nomination must be of a historic figure – as in a dead person – because the only living person allowed to be depicted is the Monarch. Who knew? That’s bank note protocol for you. Just over 400 nominations have already been made by nearly 20,000 of you. The likes of sculptress Barbara Hepworth, film director Alfred Hitchcock, painter J.M.W Turner, Pre-Raphaelite muse Elizabeth Siddal, fashion designer Jean Muir, landscapist Capability Brown and photographer Corinne Day have made the long list. Then an advisory committee of experts along with public focus groups will whittle the list down before The Bank of England’s governor Mark Carney has the final say. So who do you think is worthy? Who’s made the most impactful contribution to the visual arts since day dot? Whose achievement exceeds that of any other creative? I’m sure you can think of one or two. Or if you just want to see your favourite architect, artist, ceramicist, craftsperson, fashion designer, filmmaker, photographer, printmaker or