SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
A class analysis
MIKE QUILLE is impressed by the rigorous Marxist approach to be found in a new book on the dialectics of art
PAUL FOLEY recommends an extraordinary double bill that packs a punch and leaves you reeling
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience
SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa
MATTHEW HAWKINS pays tribute to the performance artist and costumier, Leigh Bowery
SIMON DUFF reviews a new composition by German composer and pianist Florian Weber that blurs the line between where improvisation ends and composition begins
New releases from The Jim Mullen Quartet, Caroline Kraabel/John Edwards, and Matthew Muneses/Riza Printup
The Dialectics of Art
by John Molyneux
(Haymarket Books, £17.99)
GROUNDED in a solidly Marxist perspective, John Molyneux’s book is a very fine contribution to writing on art.
Carefully argued chapters on what art is — how we evaluate it, how it changes and develops and the dialectical nature of modernism — are illustrated by case studies of artists including Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Tracey Emin, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and others.
The central strength of these theoretical and case-study strands is the recognition of the dialectical tensions that are generated and expressed in artworks which are produced in class-divided societies like our own.
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