Arts
16 December 2006
A basic feature of capitalism is that aspects of life that should be accessible to everyone become controlled and restricted to a privileged elite – the ruling class. Works of visual art, such as paintings or sculptures, are no exception to this general rule.
16 December 2006
What’s Going OnThe Dirty Dozen Brass BandCD out now
It is testament to the power of Marvin Gaye’s album What’s Going On that its songs have been covered by hundreds of artists, almost from the moment it was released in 1971.
16 December 2006
In recent years there has been a renewed interest in street art, coinciding with the rise of the anti-capitalist movement. One element of this is "culture jamming" or "adbusting", where activists use guerrilla art techniques to subvert the advertising that pervades our society.
09 December 2006
A new play by Caryl Churchill is a genuine cultural event. The author of such acclaimed plays as Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, Cloud Nine and Top Girls, is one of the most distinctive, intelligent and (both artistically and politically) radical playwrights of her generation.
09 December 2006
Living HistoryTate Modern, central Londonuntil 28 JanuaryFree
Living History explores the response of artists to major political events of the past 100 years. Highlights include Chris Ofili’s No Woman No Cry, a moving painting about the racist murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.
09 December 2006
The extraordinary new jazz album Political Blues by the World Saxophone Quartet is a howl of rage at the state of the US.
02 December 2006
"I like the idea of artists from different musical traditions and from all corners of the world coming together to oppose racism, to demand world peace and support the Socialist Worker appeal."
25 November 2006
German Film FestivalGoethe-Institut and Curzon Soho, London23 November to 1 December
This is a great chance to see a few films that will most likely not make it to general release.
25 November 2006
Pan’s Labyrinth is the second film in which Mexican film director Guillermo del Toro has confronted the theme of fascism.
25 November 2006
This political satire imagines a future where Britain has been rebranded as Team Britain, and a Team Leader has taken the place of the prime minister.
18 November 2006
In The Face of HistoryBarbican, central Londonuntil 28 January
Emmy Andrisse’s Girls Hanging Onto Shop Railings taken just after the liberation of Amsterdam from the Nazis in 1945 is part of the In The Face of History exhibition at the Barbican in central London. The exhibition charts the history of European photography from 1900.
18 November 2006
It’s not every day that you come across a hip-hop album that deals explicitly with the thoughts going through the mind of a suicide bomber, or talks frankly about how scaremongering over refugees fuels the growth of the Nazi British National Party.
18 November 2006
The Great English playwright Howard Barker has been marginalised by the London theatre establishment - none of his dramas have been staged by the National Theatre in London.
11 November 2006
Accidental Death of an AnarchistWritten by Dario FoHackney Empire, LondonUntil 9 December <a href="http://www.anarchistplay.com" target = "_blank">www.anarchistplay.com</a>
Dario Fo’s most famous play has become a classic. It combines wit and slapstick comedy with a devastating and chilling critique of the abuse of institutional power.
11 November 2006
For several weeks in 1936, people walking around the Harlem area of New York would have come across the word Macbeth cryptically daubed in glowing paints on every street corner.
04 November 2006
The State Within begins at breakneck pace. It cuts between rapid close ups of shrink wrap, wire and explosives leaving the dizzy impression that we’re in for another imitation of the hit US series 24.
04 November 2006
Reel NewsDVD out now £6
Powerplay Production has launched a monthly DVD chronicling radical movements.
04 November 2006
The anti-war movement is the inspiration for these artworks by Kagan Guner. "When two million people marched against the war in February 2003, I felt we were one. Nobody was a foreigner in that rally," he told Socialist Worker. His work is part of the exhibition Belonging: Voices of London’s Refugees which brings together the experiences and contributions of refugees in the capital.
28 October 2006
The socialist Mehdi Ben Barka was a leading figure in the national liberation movement which won Morocco independence from France in 1956. While in exile in the 1960s he continued to play a role in the anti-colonial movement internationally.
28 October 2006
There are two things you need to know about Lupe Fiasco and his new album Food and Liquor.