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| | | Ingrid Pollard: the Turner nominee uncovering Britain's secret shame – review | | by Hettie Judah May 3, 2022 | | MK Gallery, Milton Keynes
Subtly and without neat punchlines, this exhibition slowly drags into view an embedded history of the African people who came to Britain With detailed studies of flaking, iron-blooded rock, printed at monumental scale Ingrid Pollard directs our thoughts to the bigger picture. The title of her show, Carbon Slowly Turning, might describe the motion of the spinning Earth, with you, me, the trees and other carbon-based life upon it. But Pollard’s urge to revisit and remix art made across four decades also makes me think of a compost heap – in a good way. The show concludes with some of her oldest work – body shots from 1991 articulating lesbian experience – alongside her most recent, looking at pride, propaganda and national identity. It’s as though Pollard is constantly turning her pile of leaves, pulling old material through new, to see what mycelium it might generate. Continue reading... | | | | | Barry & Joan review – joyful celebration of eccentric entertainers | | by Leslie Felperin May 3, 2022 | | Nostalgic insight into the theatrical world of the Granthams, an all-singing, all-dancing couple from the golden generation of vaudeville This tender tribute to dancing/mime/commedia dell’arte masters Barry and Joan Grantham is as sweet and nostalgic as elderflower cordial. Married for donkey’s years, the couple are somewhere in their 80s or 90s. This film is airily unspecific about such details, although every clip showing one of their film appearances is accompanied by a date, some going back to the 1940s. Manchester-reared Barry started out as a “ballet boy”, trained with famed dancer Stanislas Idzikowski whom he still refers to as his “beloved master”, and even appeared in Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes in 1948. Joan, from the more genteel home counties, was a second or third generation musician and came up through the business as a dancer as well, but also tickled the ivories; now she mostly plays accompaniment on the piano in the couple’s studio as they train various adult pupils in the mysteries of commedia, diction and performance in general. Continue reading... | | | | | |
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