Hiroshige's peerless prints, McCartney's unseen snaps and Vancouver's blue skies – the week in art
British Museum, London, from 1 May until 7 September
Do Ho Suh: Walk the House
Installations that play with images of home by the noted Korean artist based in London.
Tate Modern, London from 1 May until 19 October
The World of King James VI and I
The 17th-century ruler of both Scotland and England presided over an edgy cultural golden age.
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh from 26 April until 14 September
Robert Thomas James Mills: Extratemporal
An exploration of the nature of time and space by this Glasgow artist.
CCA, Glasgow from 3 May until 24 May
Lisa Milroy: The Colour Blue
Paintings of blue skies and memories of a Vancouver childhood from an artist best known for her still lifes.
Kate MacGarry, London from 3 May until 31 May
Here you can see Brian Epstein, Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall setting off, with four mop-topped popsters, for New York in February 1964; one of the hitherto unseen glimpses into Beatlemania's birth shared by Paul McCartney, opening at the Gagosian gallery in Beverly Hills, California, today. Read the full story here
The days of controversial and shocking Turner prize shortlists are over
Scientists weren't sure a paint in the 'new' colour they've discovered has the right mix
Mao Ishikawa's photographs honour people regarded as 'less than human' elsewhere
Yinka Shonibare has filled a 2,200 sq m building in Madagascar with his works
Royal exhibition will show 70 artworks of Charles touring the world over 40 years
Richard Wright's new show is a mind-bending and mesmerising visual adventure
Survivors of abuse have curated work by once revered sexual abuser Eric Gill
JMW Turner, born 250 years ago this spring, remains Britain's greatest artist
Ali Cherri's primeval sculptures use ancient artefacts to make new work
Graven Hill, the UK's biggest self-build experiment, has lost some creative chaos
Nymphs Surprised By Satyrs by Franchoys Wouters, about 1650-60
This painting belongs to a genre that flourished for hundreds of years, so it presumably pleased someone. First take your woodlands – tenderly, atmospherically painted by Wouters in shades of green and brown – then depict nude women resting in a leafy bower, in this case on luxurious bedding. It was a combination pioneered by the Venetian artists Giorgione and Titian in the early 1500s and taken up by later artists including Poussin and Rubens – in whose studio the painter of this canvas had worked.
Such peepshow pastorals were among the first canvases to be bought by private collectors for personal enjoyment. Yet in this example, Wouters (again, following Titian) mocks the male viewer by adding lustful satyrs who peep at the snoozing women: look all you like, he laughs, but don't think you're better than these goatish voyeurs. He adds another twist. The two nymphs face each other and their feet touch as they lie in close tranquility: the satyrs have chanced on same-sex forest lovers. As ever in art, there's more going on than first meets the eye.
National Gallery, London
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Spectator
41 minutes ago
- Spectator
Culture clash: Sympathy Tokyo Tower, by Rie Qudan, reviewed
Language, it has been said, is the only true democracy – changed by the people that use it. But as with any democracy, there is plenty of disagreement about what alterations are either possible or permissible. Japanese uses three distinct writing systems – kanji, hiragana and katakana – and the relationship between two of them, kanji and katakana, is a key theme of last year's prizewinning speculative fiction Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan – a lyrical, witty, satirical but meditative and meticulous text, now published in Jesse Kirkwood's vibrant and faithful English translation. We are in the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo in the lightly altered mid-2020s. The Olympics took place in 2021, a year late as a result of the pandemic, but one curious difference has occurred: Zaha Hadid's futuristic national stadium, which in our reality was cancelled at the last minute, was in fact built. This minor change seems to have ushered in other more widespread shifts in politics and culture. Notably, a huge new skyscraper in the middle of the city is to house criminals in comfort and luxury, as part of society's debt to these unfortunate beings. A glimpse into a potential near future (which might be a dystopia or a utopia, depending on your point of view), Sympathy Tower Tokyo has some connections with Yoko Ogawa's excellent dreamlike science fiction The Memory Police (1994), as well as more distant echoes of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and Huxley's Brave New World (1932). Yet this is a wholly distinctive novel, alarmingly prescient and up to date. Controversy arose – and still seems to infest chatter about the book – when Qudan divulged that she used AI to write part of it. She later clarified that AI was employed only to generate specific responses in the text when a character consults a chatbot – a creative touch which, rather than representing laxity or deception, surely carries a Joycean level of authenticity. Sara Machina, a celebrated architect, is to design the building, which is to be officially called 'Sympathy Tower Tokyo' – a name which irks Sara, since it uses katakana characters to approximate the English words, a common trend in modern Japanese, rather than the more difficult, but established, kanji script. Kanji are the thousands of intricately complex Chinese-origin characters children (and foreigners) struggle to learn. The more straightforward, phonetic katakana is for loanwords, buzzwords, commercial jargon and the like. Qudan uses this issue to explore how kanji might transmit tradition and certainty, katakana flexibility and ambiguity – but might kanji not also carry prejudice and the burdens of the past, which could be swept away by the invigorating, outward-looking torrent of contemporary katakana, especially when it comes to shifting socio-sexual topics such as global warming, crime and gender? Yet, if the Japanese are to change their language, will they not also lose the distinctiveness of their national identity? Readers who know Japanese will naturally get more out of this than those unfamiliar with the language, but the ideas discussed will stimulate anyone. This is a book which raises profound and ever-pressing questions about the elusive nature of words, their symbolic status, and their multi-faceted, convoluted relationship with geography, history and culture. It explores the relationship between the urban, built environment and our fabricated world of words, between social and linguistic developments, between the kaleidoscopic vogues of language, society and philosophy. And it examines the way architecture, like words, can be destructive as well as creative, while criminals can be victims, too, worthy of love and reward just as much as hatred and punishment. Told from ever-shifting verbal and textual perspectives, with playful nods to contemporary controversies (AI; the Hadid stadium hullabaloo; cancel culture; Covid; Twitter's name change), this is a spirited novel that asks profound questions, impishly worrying about the potentially flavourless future of humanity. The tower itself can re-assimilate persecuted delinquents, making society more equal, more just, (more boring?) – just as AI threatens to steal everyone's jobs and turn vibrant global languages into one bland gloopy soup: harmless but meaningless, safe but insipid. Sympathy Tower Tokyo feels so über-zeitgeisty that it might have been written this morning, and it is alive with all the tools (and fools) of modernity. Yet it is far more than merely topical or trendy, as deep moral, political, social, cultural, architectural and lingual problems collide, merge and inform each other throughout this relatively short novel. A contemporary gem.
Scottish Sun
3 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Heartbreaking tale of how pint of Wrexham Lager bonded veteran Herbert with PoW friend as UK marks 80 years since VJ Day
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Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 4 100-year-old WW2 veteran Herbert Pritchard has a special connection to Wrexham Lager Credit: Paul Tonge 4 Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought Wrexham Brewery last year Credit: Getty 4 Herbert as World War Two naval gunner Credit: Paul Tonge The A-listers bought the brewery, founded in 1882, last year after also acquiring Wrexham AFC in 2021, so were delighted to oblige. Herbert was just 20 when serving as a marine in the Far East, tasked with bringing home prisoners of war — and it was hearing one of their number, also from Wrexham, longingly mention the lager from the pair's home town that began their friendship. The ex-marine Herbert had come across had been so badly treated by the Japanese he had shrunk from 12st to 6st. But when Herbert overheard him say, 'Get me back to Blighty, I can't wait for a pint of Wrexham Lager,' he knew they were they practically neighbours — and kindred spirits. read more on VJ Day 'FORGOTTEN' How elite the Chindits smashed Japanese supply lines in Burma ahead of VJ Day In 1945, lager was rare in the UK and Wrexham in North Wales was one of the few places that made it — so when Herbert and his new pal got home, they soon made up for lost drinking time as they met up regularly for a pint. But sadly, Herbert's mate had suffered so much punishment at the hands of the Japanese that he only lived for two years after the war. 'Men like scarecrows' To toast VJ Day — August 15, 1945 — and his friend, Herbert joined The Sun in raising a pint of Wrexham Lager in the brewery his pal loved so much. Herbert will tomorrow meet King Charles and Queen Camilla during a service at the National Memorial Arboretum, Staffs, to honour the 1.5million British and Commonwealth forces who fought against the Japanese. But first, over his cold pint, he recounted for us his extraordinary tale of a wartime bond forged over a love of beer. As his tipple was poured, Herbert apologised: 'I can't for the life of me remember my friend's name. I am so sorry.' How Wrexham was transformed from crime-ridden hellhole to Welsh Hollywood as locals say 'next stop's the Premier League' But in his exclusive chat with The Sun, he recalled the first time their paths crossed. Herbert was a gunner on light cruiser HMS Newcastle, which had been sent to Burma to draw out the Japanese fighters then later pick up PoWs. The ship's Royal Marines would be sent out from the vessel in small boats to distract the Japanese, who would fire on them with rifles and shells. Get me back to Blighty, I can't wait for a pint of Wrexham Lager Dad-of-three Herbert said: 'We were bait — our job was to blow up a hell of a lot then draw the Japanese out so the 14th Army could move in behind and capture them. 'There were big shells flying overhead and we were just in these little wooden boats. "All we had on were shorts and the sun was so strong. "I developed a skin condition 30 years later.' On occasion, the marines would go ashore and one day Herbert remembers seeing what he thought were scarecrows in a field — but he said: 'We walked towards them and they weren't scarecrows, they were our men.' 'Prisoners of war' HMS Newcastle was stationed off Japan when the US dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, on August 6 and 9 respectively. Herbert said: 'We didn't even know it had happened until it was all over. "One day the skipper said, 'We're heading home.' That was it.' We were the forgotten army but I am glad that on Friday the country will remember those who served and did not come home Herbert On the way back to Britain, the ship moored in Sydney Harbour, and one morning dozens of men were standing on the dockside, their few belongings wrapped in newspaper. Sipping his pint, Herbert recalls: 'It was a sight I'd never hope to see again. "We went over the side and down to them, and they were all prisoners of war — our lads and they were in a hell of a state. 'I'd never seen any sights like them. "They were like skeletons and this bloke who was a former marine, when he was captured he was 12st, now he was 6st. "He was the man who wanted a pint of Wrexham Lager. 'It turned out he lived ten minutes down the road from me. I was determined to look after him. "By the time we landed in Portsmouth he had put on most of his weight he had lost — although on the way home he almost got us all locked up. 'It was his birthday and on board a ship they pour the rum out for everybody to celebrate. 4 Herbert shares a pint with Mike at Wrexham Brewery Credit: Paul Tonge 'This lad from Wrexham, he was singing away and we had to hide him when the officer of the watch came round on inspection. "As the officer was leaving, he said, 'Tell your mate to sing in tune'. He could have put us all on the charge but he didn't.' After the war, Herbert worked in a rope factory and the PoW was a conductor on the Crosville buses. But Herbert said: 'One day, a couple of years after the war, he wasn't there. He had died. He wasn't very old. 'We were the forgotten army but I am glad that on Friday the country will remember those who served and did not come home.' Do you know the Wrexham Prisoner of War?
Telegraph
4 hours ago
- Telegraph
France ‘wanted its citizens to see Bayeux Tapestry for free at British Museum'
France reportedly demanded that its citizens be allowed to see the Bayeux Tapestry for free or at a discount when it goes on display at the British Museum next year. Last month, The Telegraph revealed that a deal had been reached for the 900-year-old textile artwork depicting the Norman Conquest of 1066 to be loaned to the British Museum French officials lobbied for their compatriots to be allowed to visit the London display for free, according to the Financial Times, but officials close to negotiations thought the idea was a 'try-on' and 'never going to happen'. French museums do not typically provide free entry in France itself. In return for the tapestry, George Osborne, the British Museum chairman, agreed to loan the Anglo-Saxon treasures of the Sutton Hoo burial, and the medieval Lewis Chessmen. French officials are said to have initially wanted to borrow the Rosetta Stone, arguably the most popular item in the British Museum's collection. The museum did not wish to part with the 2,100-year-old Ancient Egyptian artefact, and this idea fell by the wayside. The Rosetta Stone was discovered by French forces in 1799 during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt. It was being used by the local population to bolster a wall. The stone was seized by the British, at war with France at the time. Its inscription, deciphered by Jean-François Champollion, a French orientalist, showed scholars how to read Ancient Egyptian texts. The stone may have fitted with Emmanuel Macron's plans for the Bayeux Tapestry exchange, which is intended to demonstrate the bonds between Britain and France and a new spirit of co-operation. The tapestry is likely to bring in crowds comparable to the most popular shows in the British Museum 's history, which drew hundreds of thousands of visitors. A British Museum spokesman said: 'As our chairman George Osborne has said, this will be the blockbuster show of our generation. This is an object of such historical significance for the UK that we want as many people as possible to have the chance to see it.' The deal on the tapestry, which is to be moved next year, came after plans first announced in 2018 by Theresa May, the prime minister at the time. She hoped to secure a loan for the tapestry, but this was repeatedly put off because of concerns over the delicate condition of the embroidery and the risk of moving it.
