The Chinese language only introduced a feminine pronoun in the 1920s. Now, it might adopt a gender-inclusive one, suggests JANET DAVEY
Latest editorial
The art of political liberation
DANIEL TESTER and ORLA McHALE survey the astonishing achievement of Donald Rodney, whose themes of racial injustice and institutional inequality are as relevant today as when he made them
ALEX HALL is intrigued by a detailed history of Gaza that demonstrates its historic resilience and changing economy
RON JACOBS welcomes the long overdue translation of an epic work that chronicles resistance to fascism during WWII
MAYER WAKEFIELD is chilled by the co-dependency of two lost souls as portrayed by German communist playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz
The Star's critics BRETT GREGORY, JOHN GREEN, MICHAEL BONCZA and ANGUS REID review The Stimming Pool, Misericordia, La Cocina, Irena’s Vow, and The End
CHRIS MOSS welcomes a radical history that brings marginalised stories and overlooked people and agencies to the centre
ANDREW HEDGECOCK relishes visual storytelling with no respect for genres, movements or styles
Donald Rodney
Spike Island, Bristol
SUMMER is not in the air at Spike Island, Bristol, where the gallery hosts a major retrospective of the trailblazing Birmingham artist, Donald Rodney. Rodney, as a short film included in the exhibition reveals, rarely saw the summer sunshine, as his lifelong condition of sickle cell anaemia usually left him hospitalised throughout the season.
Rodney’s struggle with his condition, which would lead to his tragically early death at 36 in 1998, informs much of his work, which is dark, painful and unsparing, seeming to anticipate and confront a death that hectored him all his life.
More from this author
While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
ANGUS REID recommends an exquisite drama about the disturbing impact of the one child policy in contemporary China
The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
Similar stories
The Guyanese scholar’s groundbreaking work revealed how Europe deliberately underdeveloped Africa while using its resources and people to fuel Western capitalism, writes ROGER MCKENZIE
JAN WOOLF applauds art that has not only documented the anti-war and anti-capitalist movement but been an integral part of it
JAN WOOLF marvels at the dream-like forms of little-known English surrealist Henry Orlik, whose work reaches back to the traumas of war and migration