NEWCASTLE PHOTOGRAPHY
Side Gallery
Side
Looking for Lenin
Until March 25

By the end of 2016, none of the 5,500 statues of Lenin throughout Ukraine was still standing. To explore the meaning of this “decommunisation,” photographer Niels Ackermann and the journalist Sebastien Gobert travelled through the country in search of crumbled stone and fragments of metal. What began as a simple journey of curiosity became “an astonishing adventure through Ukraine in upheaval” in a country where Lenin's name“ still weighs heavily on the present and future of Ukraine.” So have the antics of the US-backed nazi clique currently in power in Kiev — wonder if they get a look in.
amber-online.com

CHICHESTER EXHIBITION
Leonard Rosoman: Painting Theatre
Pallant House Gallery
North Pallant
February 3-April 29

IN 1965, the London production of John Osborne's play A Patriot For Me about the 19th century gay spy Alfred Redl was denied a public licence for performance. The scene that most excited the censor was the Drag Ball, in which members of the upper echelons of Viennese society appear in drag. But painter Leonard Rosoman (1913-2012) found the play's exploration of gay life such a transformative experience that he created drawings, on show in this exhibition, which capture a moment in time when attitudes towards sexuality and censorship were on the cusp of change.
pallant.org.uk