MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
War-games: no way way
SIMON DUFF explores the latest offering of the Chinese artist in exile AI WEI WEI
Ai Wei Wei, Wheatfield With Crows, 2024
[©Ai Weiwei Studio/Courtesy of Lisson Gallery London] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
Ai Weiwei, A New Chapter
Lisson Gallery, London
DESPITE the obvious reservations about his anti-Chinese propaganda, exiled artist Ai Weiwei’s new work raises awkward questions around his own methods of production.
His Tate Modern 2010 installation Sunflower Seeds consisted of millions of small works, each apparently identical, but all unique. The life-sized sunflower seed husks were intricately hand-crafted in porcelain, each seed individually sculpted and painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. Some 100 million seeds formed a seemingly infinite landscape.
As much as a celebration of the work itself, the means of production was the central notion to the work, and the extent of the likely exploitative nature of that was questionable.
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SIMON DUFF recommends an outstanding album of choral works that range from the 12th century to the present day
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