Highlights
Art
Why go online, when you can paint?
I once fled my flat at every opportunity – but oil paints have taught me about the joy of being indoors
Helene Kröller-Müller, the heiress who bought the future
The German philanthropist spent big on daring art and a stunning gallery – then waited for the world to catch up
The newsstand revives in Rome
An abandoned kiosk near St Peter’s Square has become one of the city’s most creative addresses
How the Tate became a culture war punchbag
Right wingers claiming that ‘woke’ has killed the galleries are indulging in wishful thinking
Edward Burra, the artist who wasn’t interested
The painter didn’t have much time for art, or sex or his home town. But don’t let that fool you
Rotterdam’s moving museum of migration
The debate around migration has never been more febrile. Time then for Fenix, which celebrates art by and about refugees
Books
Irene Solà’s whispering tales of devils and lost souls
Four generations of women inhabit a landscape of wolves, fascists and devils in the Catalan writer’s haunting novel
The man who sees the darkness roll in
As his own star rises, global noir writer Nicolás Obregón is raging at the state of the world
Night terrors and the Nazis
A book that collects the dreams of Germans – Jews and gentiles alike – during the 1930s
The Rest of Our Lives lacks a punchline and a point
Benjamin Markovits’s Booker-longlisted The Rest of Our Lives wants us to cheer on a tedious man’s journey of self-discovery. I loathed every moment
Dear Guido, sorry about all the bodies
A crime writer’s memoir goes from New Jersey to Venice via Iran and LA – and features an apology to her most famous character
Universality, satire that’s highly in tents
Book festivals, ragebait journalism and city boys in the country get eviscerated in Natasha Brown’s brilliant Universality
Music
Sérgio Mendes, the man who drove the new Brazilian sound to worldwide acclaim
For pretty much his entire life, Mendes was either in style or on the verge of being back in vogue, such is the world’s enduring love of Brazilian music
The Raincoats, music’s best kept secret
Formed at the height of punk and revered by fans like Kurt Cobain, the Raincoats are the band that refused to die
I went to a Gaza protest and a Kneecap concert broke out
The controversial band defied local critics and pro-Israeli protestors at a riotous gig in Paris
Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and the studio that changed music for ever
From a backyard shack in Kingston, Perry reinvented the idea of the recording studio – before burning it to the ground
Aretha Franklin, the Lady of Mysterious Sorrows
Considering the battles that raged within her, perhaps the thing about the singer that commands most respect is not her genius, but her persistence
The world’s first geothermal record press
In Iceland, where the boundaries of what’s possible are often pushed, Thermal Beets is ditching the harmful plastic ordinarily used to make records
Film
The last ride of James Dean
Seventy years after his fatal crash, a pilgrimage to the place where an actor died and a legend was born
No Other Choice, the new Parasite
Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice is a masterfully savage comedy of murder and capitalist ruin
The Dardennes brothers: yes they Cannes
The film-making pair have already won the Palme d’Or twice – can they win a third?
Caught Stealing, Darren Aronofsky’s love letter to New York
Aronofsky can miss the mark when he over-conceptualises. But this very entertaining gangland caper is infectious
The new film capital of the world is… Oslo
Norway’s new wave is winning awards and acclaim. But will funding problems kill off the boom just as audiences take notice?
Crime scene cinema from Gaza
Two films about unfolding tragedy shock the Locarno Film Festival
Theatre
Rosamund Pike is seriously good in Inter Alia
In Suzie Miller’s latest legal drama, the Hollywood favourite plays a judge and mother facing her worst nightmare
Has TikTok killed the critic?
Culture is increasingly filtered through social media – do we need critics any more?
Inter Alia is a remarkable production
Rosamund Pike delivers a quite astonishing performance as a Crown Court Judge wrestling with the legal system’s shoddy handling of sexual assault cases
Do not go and see this play
A distinctly unappetising production has somehow made its way to the West End. Do not be fooled
Sitting in the crowd, yearning for something fun
An earnest adaptation of a novel about suicide, sex and capital punishment is an impressive looking production, but a barrel of laughs it is not
The taming of my Shakespeare library
A mission to read the complete works in chronological order reveals unexpected joys and an antidote to theatrical woes
Great Lives
Sérgio Mendes, the man who drove the new Brazilian sound to worldwide acclaim
For pretty much his entire life, Mendes was either in style or on the verge of being back in vogue, such is the world’s enduring love of Brazilian music
Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and the studio that changed music for ever
From a backyard shack in Kingston, Perry reinvented the idea of the recording studio – before burning it to the ground
Aretha Franklin, the Lady of Mysterious Sorrows
Considering the battles that raged within her, perhaps the thing about the singer that commands most respect is not her genius, but her persistence
Nancy Wake, the White Mouse the Gestapo couldn’t corner
When Nazism came to her adopted home of France, the New Zealand journalist became a leading member of the resistance
Gore Vidal, the man who lived for verbal jousting
An unashamed member of the educated liberal elite, he parlayed his wit and access into a career of TV interviews and debates
Mary Wells: The Queen of Motown who renounced her throne
The singer left the most famous soul label in music history almost as quickly as she’d arrived