GLENN BURGESS suggests that, despite his record in Spain, Orwell’s enduring commitment to socialist revolution underpins his late novels
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Acute interest in troubled times
This year's Venice Biennale tackles some of the most pressing global concerns we face today, says DENNIS BROE
Threshold of violence: Shilpa Gupta’s Ominous Gate
CHRISTOPHER POLLARD explains how and why neoliberalism adopted the racist agenda common to the populist right of today
SYLVIA HIKINS recommends a sweeping survey of the world's biggest desert and the people who live there
GUILLERMO THOMAS is persuaded by a scathing critique of the Church of England and its embeddedness in imperialism
MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Materialists, Unmoored, Together, and Bambi: A Tale of Life in The Woods
TONY BURKE revels in the publication of previously unreleased tracks by the great US folksinger
GORDON PARSONS endures heavy rock punctuated by Shakespeare, and a delighted audience
CURATED by Hayward Gallery’s Ralph Rogoff, May You Live in Interesting Times is the title and organising principle of this year’s Venice Biennale.
The phrase itself, deployed across the political spectrum from as far left as Bertholt Brecht and as far right as Hillary Clinton, references a presumed ancient Chinese curse, although there is no trace of it in Chinese.
The more astute artists on show translate “interesting” as horrifying, blood-curdling and perilous, while others seem to reaffirm Rogoff’s catalogue description of the phrase as “complex” and, in so doing, come dangerously close to reaffirming a virtual utopia or simply wallowing in the chaos that the combination of climate disaster, impending recession and continual appropriation of more resources by the wealthiest have wrought.
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