Music Reissues Weekly: Incident at a Free Festival

INCIDENT AT A FREE FESTIVAL Saint Etienne-compiled salute to early 70s rock festivals

Saint Etienne-compiled salute to early Seventies rock festivals

“We got to play Stonehenge Festival when it was like just a field, a generator and stage. No rip-off burger joints. No packaged new age culture. Just good British hippiedom. A bunch of scruffy, dirty, bean-burger-eating, spliff-making hippies, and in the middle, a bunch of Hell’s Angels.”

Women in Revolt!, Tate Britain review - a super important if overwhelming show

★★★★★ WOMEN IN REVOLT!, TATE BRITAIN Protesting with all their might in both art and life

Women protesting with all their might in both art and life

The soundtrack to Tate Britain’s seminal exhibition Women in Revolt! is a prolonged scream. On film, Gina Birch of the punk band The Raincoats gives vent to her pent-up anger and frustration by yelling at the top of her lungs for 3 minutes (main picture). And in many ways, this whole exhibition is a scream of rage.

Music Reissues Weekly: Osmo Lindeman - Electronic Works

OSMO LINDEMAN - ELECTRONIC WORKS Finnish composer who embraced electronic music

Tribute to the Finnish composer and musician who embraced electronic music

For Finnish composer Osmo Lindeman, the decision to pursue electronic music was made in 1968 during a visit to Poland. He had recently started using graphical notation for the scores of his compositions and was having problems getting conductors and orchestras to follow what he wanted.

Music Reissues Weekly: Serge Gainsbourg - L'Homme à tête de chou

Perplexing new edition of the Gallic provocateur’s 1976 concept album

Marilou lies on the ground. She’s been bludgeoned to death by a fire extinguisher. Its foam covers her body. Her murderer is a forty-something man who has become obsessed with her. She shampoos hair in a barbers, where he first comes across her. Their affair turns sour after he finds her in bed with two other men. After the murder, her killer ends up in a mental hospital.

RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology, Barbican review - women fighting to protect the environment

★★★★ RE/SISTERS, BARBICAN Women fighting to protect the environment

Eco-warriors and art as activism

RE/SISTERS is a show about the brave women who’ve been fighting to protect our planet and the artists whose work – mainly in film and photography – is, in itself, a form of protest. The opening section, Extractive Economics demonstrates the problem – companies trashing the planet for profit, regardless of the cost to people and the environment.

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine, Hayward Gallery review - a Japanese photographer uses droll humour to ask big questions

★★★★ HIROSHI SUGIMOTO: TIME MACHINE, HAYWARD GALLERY A Japanese photographer uses droll humour to ask big questions

Bringing the dead to life and looking at the world before and after humans

A polar bear stands guard over the seal pup it has just killed (main picture). How could photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto have got so close to a wild animal at such a dangerous moment? Even if he had a powerful telephoto lens, he’d be risking life and limb. And what a perfect shot! Every hair on the bear’s body is crystal clear; in fact, it looks as if her fur has just been washed and brushed.

Album: Agnetha Fältskog - A+

★★ AGNETHA FALTSKOG - A+ ABBA star's decade-old album reimagined to little useful effect

ABBA star's decade-old album reimagined to little useful effect

When ABBA split in 1982, Agnetha Fältskog went on to a solo career that was mostly overshadowed by the titanic popularity of her former band. By the 21st century ABBA’s status in pop, especially with the Mamma Mia phenomenon, had become iconic.

Dalíland review - a tidy portrait of a chaotic artist

Salvador Dalí is an unlikely 1970s party animal in New York

The director Mary Harron is famous for staying classy while tackling blood-splashy topics – notably the attack on pop art’s leader in I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) and whatever the hell was going on in the Bret Easton Ellis novel that became Harron’s American Psycho (2000). Almost any male director would have gone Brian-De-Palma-berserk with the latter, but Harron’s film is more memorable for an OCD Christian Bale handing out his business cards than any ultra-violence.

Philip Guston, Tate Modern review - a compelling look at an artist who derided the KKK

★★★★ PHILIP GUSTON, TATE MODERN A compelling look at an artist who derided the KKK    

How to appear daft while addressing the dark side

At last, after waiting several years, we get to see Philip Guston’s paintings at Tate Modern. His retrospective was scheduled to open in summer 2020 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, but the murder of George Floyd made the institution nervous. The problem? Guston’s absurdist paintings of Klu Klux Klan (KKK) members. They could be seen to condone white supremacy or, at least, to make light of it. So the show was postponed until the artist’s intentions could be made clear.

Music Reissues Weekly: Bowes Road Band - Back in the HCA

Delightful but previously unknown early Seventies British art-school album

The acronym “HCA” in the title stands for Hornsey College of Art, the North London college which, in late May 1968, was occupied by its students and a few staff in a high-profile protest which went on into that July. What was wanted were changes in how student union funds were disbursed and how the college was run. Ultimately, barbed wire and dogs were employed to end the dispute.