Culture podcast: July 27th
In this week’s Culture podcast Shane Hegarty talks to Liam Burke at the Comic-Con convention in San Diego
Pursued by a Bear »
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Culture podcast July 21st
In this week’s Culture podcast, Shane Hegarty talks with Una Mullaly, Jim Carroll and Mick Heaney about the Galway Arts Festival and up-and-coming Irish music acts
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Pursued by a (polar) bear
Things will be quiet in these blog parts for the next 10 days or so as I’m going on holidays up north. Comments will be updated intermittently. But then you’re used to that already. Try not to wreck the gaff while I’m gone, yeah?
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If you only do one thing this weekend: get kora-fied
Kora chameleon: Small concerts in special places of a one-off nature seem to be the hallmark of the live music scene in recent years. As funds have tightened, smaller promoters have gotten creative – and this weekend is no exception. IMC’s Whirligig series is raising the bar for its third edition, with a selection of solo performances followed by the mouthwatering prospect of strawberries and cream, and a jam session. (more…)
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Galway gets interactive
Galway is in full festival flow at the moment (and you can hear Peter Crawley’s initial impressions in today’s Irish Times Podcast), and the visual-arts programme in particular could tempt a lot of people to the City of the Tribes before July 24th. (more…)
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Culture podcast: July 12th
In this week’s Culture podcast Shane Hegarty talks to Peter Crawley at the Galway Arts festival before jumping between Brian Friel, writing a pop classic, Jedward at 70, how to pitch and Peter Pan with Patrick Freyne and Sara Keating.
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If you only do one thing this weekend . . . dance with the devil
PICTURE PERFECT: The PhotoIreland festival has taken over half the city’s galleries and spaces it seems, but we’re not complaining. It’s a feast for the photographic senses, from the fantastic selection of work by rediscovered Spanish photojournalist Marin to the more modern work of the SeeChange collective. (more…)
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Cy Twombly has left the building
Cy Twombly is no more. The American artist died yesterday at the age of 83.
Twombly linked an awful lot of disparate elements and different worlds. He was American, from the Deep South, but seemed more at home in Europe. His paintings had grand themes of death and gods, but also sex and more prosaic, if no less vital concerns. His work was cutting edge, but drew on ancient sources for inspiration and definition.
Twombly was seen as the successor to the likes of Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock, and indeed many of you may have seen his paintings during Imma’s recent show inspired by the life and work of Morton Feldman. A Tate Modern show in 2008 marked his 80th birthday; at the time, this paper’s art critic Aidan Dunne wrote: “You might find this fascinating or simply exasperating, and Twombly’s work attracts both responses.”
Twombly’s greatest source of inspiration was Mediterranean Europe and its coastline, littered with the physical decaying evidence of gods and myths. His artistic responses to modern events drew on historical parallels, although he was never above being inventive or evolving his work. One of his last commissions was to paint the roof of the Louvre: he drenched the space in blue, with floating discs and the names of ancient sculptors, a sudden departure that he put down to getting “into something new”.
The New York scene of the mid 20th century, with Jasper Johns, Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg and Pollock rattling around, is now approaching near mythic status, and Twombly was one of the last living links to this era. He left it, though, to head to Italy and explore the ancient artistic roots that so fascinated him.
An exhibition of his work is currently in the Dulwich Gallery in London, and Twombly had intended to open it; Tacita Dean has made a film of Twombly that will be on show there. Here is one of his images, but it seems ridiculous to put it here. Like pretty much any abstract works, they have to be experienced in the flesh in their full intended scale, not on the dull, glassy glare of a screen, to be decently appreciated.
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Culture podcast: July 6th
In this week’s Culture podcast Shane Hegarty, Jim Carroll, Una Mullally bully me about my lumpy bagel head and we eventually get around to some discussion about the best and the worst bits of music festivals. (For pics of said lumpy head, see my Twitter feed @laurencemackin. It’s really not pretty.)
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