ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
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Clay for today
MICHAL BONCZA recommends some striking work by contemporary female potters and ceramicists
FIRED UP: (Left to right) Magdalene Odundo, Early Vessel; Alison Britton, White Pot, 1991 and Ladi Kwali, Water Jar, c1960s
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
Pioneering Women
Oxford Ceramics Gallery
PRODUCING utilitarian ceramic vessels is one the most ancient and well-documented human activities. Archaeologists digging at any site anywhere in the world prioritise, above all else, locating pottery as a trusted source of information.
The word ceramic derives from the Greek “keramos” meaning pottery, or a potter, and its Sanskrit root used to mean “burnt stuff.” Hence ceramic describes objects which have been formed with clay, hardened by firing and decorated or glazed.
A kitchen dating back 20,000 years was unearthed in a cave in China in the early 2000s, with a wealth of pottery fragments and a similar find in Britain — the Windmill Hill “cooking” pot — dates back to the Neolithic period of 4,000 BC. Today’s meat-and-lentil stew recipes can be traced to that era.
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MICHAL BONCZA recommends a minimalist installation that prompts intriguing connotations
KATAYOUN SHAHANDEH surveys Iran’s cultural heritage and explains what has been damaged and what could be lost
SIMON PARSONS applauds an artist who rescues and rehumanises stories of women, the victims of violence, from a feminist perspective
JAN WOOLF ponders the works and contested reputation of the West German sculptor and provocateur, who believed that everybody is potentially an artist